Deck 1: Introduction

Question 1

Optimization models can be used to

A)assess the risk of investment portfolios.
B)forecast future financial performance.
C)successfully manage commercial real estate risk.
D)decide on how to invest cash received from insurance policies.

Answer 1

decide on how to invest cash received from insurance policies.

Question 2

Picks and Axes Inc. is an Internet-based retail seller of hiking boots and mountaineering gear. The company decides to open retail stores across the major areas of the city to help complement its Internet-based strategy. This activity would be categorized as a(n)

A)tactical decision.
B)operational decision.
C)strategic decision.
D)financial decision.

Answer 2

strategic decision.

Question 3

In the financial sector, ___________________________ are used to construct financial instruments such as derivatives.

A)descriptive and prescriptive models
B)predictive models
C)descriptive models
D)prescriptive models

Answer 3

predictive models

Question 4

______________________ is the most critical step of the decision-making process.

A)Choosing an alternative
B)Identifying and defining the problem
C)Evaluating the alternatives
D)Determining the set of alternatives

Question 5

Which of the following best exemplifies big data?

A)Five hundred Facebook users upload one thousand pictures per day.
B)Cellphone owners around the world generate vast amounts of data by calling, texting, tweeting, and browsing the Web on a daily basis.
C)A local grocery store collects data from those that scan their loyalty card.
D)A pharmacy keeps track of customer purchases to send their customers coupons.

Question 6

Simulation optimization helps

A)in identifying the constraints of the situation.
B)to find good decisions in highly complex and highly uncertain settings.
C)in assigning values to outcomes.
D)to model certainty using optimization techniques.

Question 7

Tactical decisions define

A)the day-to-day activities of the organization.
B)the goals and plans of the organization.
C)the domain of operations managers, who are close to the customer.
D)the steps taken to achieve the goals and objectives.

Question 8

____________________ assigns values to outcomes based on the decision maker's attitude toward risk, loss, and other factors.

A)Simulation optimization
B)Utility theory
C)Optimization model
D)Data dashboard

Question 9

When a decision maker is faced with several alternatives and an uncertain set of future events, s/he uses ______ to develop an optimal strategy.

A)utility theory
B)predictive analytics
C)data mining
D)decision analysis

Question 10

The decisions concerning an organization's goals and future plans are called

A)financial decisions.
B)tactical decisions.
C)strategic decisions.
D)operational decisions.

Question 11

A forecast that helps direct police officers to areas where crimes are likely to occur based on past data is an example of

A)predictive analytics.
B)decision analysis.
C)prescriptive analytics.
D)descriptive analytics.

Question 12

Which one of the following is used in predictive analytics?

A)Data dashboard
B)Linear regression
C)Data visualization
D)Optimization model

Question 13

____________________ are used in the pharmaceutical industry to assess the risk of introducing a new drug.

A)Data dashboards
B)Charts
C)Spreadsheet models
D)Simulations

Question 14

The extraction of information on the number of shipments, how much was included in each shipment, the date each shipment was sent, and so on from the manufacturing plant's database exemplifies

A)spreadsheet models.
B)data dashboards.
C)data mining.
D)data queries.

Question 15

Advanced analytics generally refers to

A)descriptive and prescriptive analytics.
B)simulation.
C)predictive and prescriptive analytics.
D)decision analysis.

Question 16

Data dashboards are a type of _________ analytics.

A)predictive
B)descriptive
C)prescriptive
D)decision

Question 17

Which of the following analytical techniques helps us arrive at the best decision?

A)Predictive analytics
B)Data mining
C)Prescriptive analytics
D)Descriptive analytics

Question 18

Corporate-level managers use ______ to summarize sales by region, current inventory levels, and other company-wide metrics all in a single screen.

A)simulations
B)crosstabulation
C)data dashboards
D)tables

Question 19

Data-driven decision making tends to decrease a firm's

A)market value.
B)productivity.
C)risk.
D)profit.

Question 20

A retail store owner offers a discount on product A and predicts that the customers would purchase products B and C in addition to product A. Identify the technique used to make such a prediction.

A)Data query
B)Simulation
C)Data mining
D)Data dashboards

Question 21

In order to manage an organization's human resource activities, such as hiring employees, tracking, and influencing employee retention, HR personnel use

A)descriptive and predictive analytics.
B)descriptive and prescriptive analytics.
C)predictive and prescriptive analytics.
D)predictive analytics.

Question 22

__________ is an open-source programming environment that supports big data processing through distributed storage and distributed processing on clusters of computers.

A)Hadoop
B)Excel
C)Java
D)​MapReduce

Question 23

A mathematical model that gives the best decision, subject to the situation's constraints, is an a(n) _________________.​

Question 24

A ____________________ decision is concerned with how the organization should achieve the goals and objectives set by its strategy.

A)tactical
B)strategic
C)intuitive
D)​operational

Question 25

______________________ refers to a programming model used within Hadoop that performs the two major steps for which it is named: the map step and the reduce step.

A)MapReduce
B)Internet of Things (IoT)
C)​Advanced analytics
D)​Optimization model

Question 26

A light bulb manufacturer uses descriptive analytics

A)to present supply chain to managers visually.
B)to achieve efficiency in delivery of goods.
C)to schedule staff and vehicle for delivery.
D)to plan capacity utilization by incorporating the inherent uncertainty in commodities pricing.

Question 27

A _______________ decision involves higher-level issues and is concerned with the overall direction of the organization, defining the overarching goals and aspirations for the organization's future.

A)strategic
B)tactical
C)intuitive
D)​operational

Question 28

A dashboard is a collection of tables, charts, and maps to help management ____________ selected aspects of the company's performance.

Question 29

The use of analytical techniques for better understanding patterns and relationships that exist in large data sets is ______________.​

Question 30

_______________ analytics use techniques that take input data and yield a best course of action.

A)Prescriptive
B)Simulation
C)​Strategic
D)​Operational

Question 31

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service uses _____________ to identify patterns that distinguish questionable annual personal income tax filings.

A)utility theory
B)prescriptive analytics
C)data mining
D)decision analysis

Question 32

In the spectrum of business analytics, which is the most complex?

A)Descriptive
B)Predictive
C)Prescriptive
D)​Operational

Question 33

A decision concerned with how the organization is run from day to day is known as a(n) _______________.

Question 34

An increase in data ____________________ would help to protect stored data from destructive forces or unauthorized users.​

Question 35

A better understanding of consumer behavior through analytics directly leads to

A)more profits.
B)better pricing strategies.
C)reduced advertising costs.
D)reduced risk.

Question 36

___________________ may be used to develop an optimal strategy when a decision maker is faced with several decision alternatives and an uncertain set of future events.

Question 37

_____________________ refers to the technology that allows data, collected from sensors in all types of machines, to be sent over the Internet to repositories where it can be stored and analyzed.

A)Internet of Things (IoT)
B)MapReduce
C)​Hadoop
D)​Advanced analytics

Question 38

​_______________ analytics are techniques that use models, constructed from past data, to predict the future or to ascertain the impact of one variable on another.

A)​Predictive
B)​Descriptive
C)Simulation
D)​Prescriptive

Question 39

____________________ are analytical tools that describe what has happened.

Question 40

​Utility theory is the study of the __________________ or relative desirability of a particular outcome that reflects the decision maker's attitude toward a collection of factors, such as profit, loss, and risk.

A)​total worth
B)​total cost
C)​feasibility
D)financial wellness

Question 41

____________________ analytics is the analysis of online activity, such as visits to websites or social media.

Question 42

A data ______________ is a request to obtain information with certain characteristics from a database.​

Question 43

Business analytics is the __________________________ process of transforming data into insight for making better decisions.

Question 44

The use of probability and statistics to construct a computer model to study the impact of uncertainty on the decision at hand is called _____________________.

Question 45

Veracity has to do with how much __________________ is in the data.

Question 46

One of the 4 Vs of big data that refers to uncertainty due to data inconsistency and incompleteness, ambiguities, latency, deception, and model approximations is _________.

Question 47

Predictive and prescriptive analytics can also be referred to as ___________________.​

Question 48

Data that are too large or too complex to be handled by standard data-processing techniques and typical desktop software are called _______________________ .​

Question 49

A data __________________ is trained in both computer science and statistics and knows how to effectively process and analyze large amounts of data.