Two departments, one average — Caselets Aptitude Question
Two departments, one average: A company has 40 employees in sales averaging ₹30,000 a month and 60 in engineering… Answer and worked solution on CodeKairo.
- Topic: Caselets
- Section: Data Interpretation
- Difficulty: Medium
- Time target: 75 seconds
Question
A company has 40 employees in sales averaging ₹30,000 a month and 60 in engineering averaging ₹50,000.
What is the average salary across the whole company?
Options
- ₹38,000
- ₹40,000
- ₹42,000
- ₹44,000
Show the answer and the worked solution
Correct answer: C. ₹42,000
Worked solution
- Sales total = ₹12,00,000; engineering total = ₹30,00,000.
- Combined = ₹42,00,000 across 100 employees.
- Average = ₹42,000.
Answer: ₹42,000.
The idea
The weighted average leans towards the larger department, so it sits above the midpoint of ₹40,000. That is a quick sanity check.
Shortcut. Weights 40 : 60 put the average 60% of the way from ₹30,000 to ₹50,000: 30,000 + 12,000 = ₹42,000.
Common trap. ₹40,000 — the plain midpoint of the two averages, which ignores that engineering has more people.