Answer:
12500
Step-by-step explanation:
11830 - 10464 = 1366 (difference 1995 to 96)
10464 - 8958 = 1506 (94 to 95)
8958 - 8135 = 823
8135 - 7537 = 598
7537 - 6642 = 895
6642 - 5942 = 700
5942 - 3579 = 2363 (5 years)
so, we have the annual differences over 11 years.
the expectation for the following year would be based on the mean value of growth rate and not on the mean value of the absolute numbers, as we know the number of transactions for 1997 will be higher than for 1996.
so, the mean value of growth over these 11 years is 750.
so, based on this we would estimate for 1997
11830 + 750 = 12580 (12500 being the closest answer option).
but if the business environment has changed over the most recent years, we should not bring in earlier years into that calculation (or at least not with the same weight).
we could argue that the last 2 years had a totally different behavior than the years before.
so, just creating a mean value of the last 2 years' changes would be
(1366 + 1506) / 2 = 2872 / 2 = 1436.
now, or prediction would be
11830 + 1436 = 13266, which would be closer to the 13500 answer option.
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