A data analyst wants to determine the total cost for each transaction in a data set. Which method should be used?

• A. Parsing
• B. Scaling
• C. Deriving
• D. Compressing

Answer: (C)

Creating a new value from existing fields to represent the total cost is derivation. In this scenario, you compute a per-transaction total by combining quantities and prices (and any applicable taxes or fees) to form a derived field, such as total_cost = quantity × unit_price (plus other charges as needed). This is the typical way to turn raw transactional data into a meaningful metric you can analyze across the dataset.

Parsing would be about extracting values from unstructured text to structured data. Scaling involves adjusting the magnitude of values (normalization or unit conversion). Compressing reduces data size or redundancy. None of those directly creates a new calculated field for each transaction like derivation does.