What type of filing system is being used if records are filed in the following order: 12-23-75, 12-34-29, 12-35-71, 13-42-14, and 14-32-79?

• A. Straight numeric
• B. Terminal digit
• C. Date-based
• D. Alphanumeric by date

Answer: (A)

When records are organized by the exact numeric value of their identifier, you’re using straight numeric filing. Here, ignore the hyphens and read the identifiers as numbers: 122375, 123429, 123571, 134214, 143279. Each successive number is greater than the one before, so the order matches increasing numeric value rather than any date or alphabetic pattern. The separators don’t affect the value, they just group the digits.

This wouldn’t be date-based filing, since the leading portion includes values like 13 and 14, which aren’t valid months, so it wouldn’t line up with calendar dates. It also wouldn’t be terminal digit filing, which sorts by the last two digits (75, 29, 71, 14, 79) rather than the whole number. Alphanumeric by date isn’t applicable here because the identifiers are numeric, not date-like strings.