A data analyst works for a rental car company. They have a spreadsheet that lists car ID numbers and the dates cars were returned. How should they sort the spreadsheet to find the most recently returned cars?

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Multiple Choice

A data analyst works for a rental car company. They have a spreadsheet that lists car ID numbers and the dates cars were returned. How should they sort the spreadsheet to find the most recently returned cars?

The key idea is to organize the data by the date of return and show the latest ones first. Sorting by the return date in descending order places the most recent returns at the top because descending means from newest to oldest. Sorting by car ID, whether ascending or descending, ignores the time information and doesn’t help identify recency. Sorting by return date in ascending order would list the oldest returns first, not the most recent. If multiple cars were returned on the same date, you could still refine the order with a secondary field like time or car ID, but the primary step to see the most recently returned cars is to sort the return date in descending order.

The key idea is to organize the data by the date of return and show the latest ones first. Sorting by the return date in descending order places the most recent returns at the top because descending means from newest to oldest. Sorting by car ID, whether ascending or descending, ignores the time information and doesn’t help identify recency. Sorting by return date in ascending order would list the oldest returns first, not the most recent. If multiple cars were returned on the same date, you could still refine the order with a secondary field like time or car ID, but the primary step to see the most recently returned cars is to sort the return date in descending order.

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