The given table shows the number of candidates appeared in an interview for different posts (A, B, C, D, E and F). What is the average number of candidates appearing for the posts C, D, E and F?

Correct — D. Read only the four posts the question names off the table image. Posts A (5500) and B (8200) are not part of this average.

C = 8600, D = 9900, E = 5300, F = 5100.

Add them:
8600 + 9900 = 18500
18500 + 5300 = 23800
23800 + 5100 = 28900

Divide by 4, the number of posts named:
28900 ÷ 4 = 7225 → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  7600 — 7600 would need the four posts to total 30400. C, D, E and F come to 28900, which is 1500 short of that.
• (b)
  8000 — 8000 is the average of B, C, D and E (8200 + 8600 + 9900 + 5300 = 32000). The reading window has slipped one row up the table.
• (c)
  7500 — 7500 would need the four posts to total 30000, which is 1100 more than the 28900 the table gives. It is the tidy figure you reach by rounding 7225 off.

A table-average item is two skills. First, read the rows the sentence names — not the ones nearest the top. Second, divide by how many rows you read, not by how many the table holds.

The table lists six posts, the question names four, so the divisor is 4. And an average of round hundreds need not itself be round: 28900 is not a multiple of 400, so the answer carries a .25 through as 7225.

Key facts

• The table reads: A 5500, B 8200, C 8600, D 9900, E 5300, F 5100 candidates.
• C + D + E + F = 28900, and 28900 ÷ 4 = 7225.
• The divisor is the number of posts named in the question, four, not the six printed in the table.
• The six posts together total 42600, an average of 7100 across all of them.

Common traps

• Dividing by 6 because the table lists six posts
• Averaging the wrong four rows, which lands on option (b)
• Assuming a set of round hundreds must average to a round figure

No directly related past PYQ was found.