AQA Large data set resources (legacy)

These resources are designed to help to introduce your students to the AQA Large Data Set for 2018-19, to get them familiar with some of its properties and typical questions that can be asked about data taken from it.

The worksheet begins by introducing the data selected by AQA and the regions of England that are referred to. There are then several pages of examples, chosen to illustrate particular properties of the data or a certain style of question. The examples cover the following:

1. How data is categorised - shows students categories and sub-categories
2. How data values are presented - shows students how the exact values in the LDS are rounded for tables/extracts
3. Outliers - shows how outliers can be identified and common outliers in the data
4. Interpretation of diagrams - allows students to consider what can and cannot be deduced from a range of diagrams

The intention is that these examples are worked through and discussed with your class. Possible answers to the examples are given in the teacher version of the worksheet.

There is then a 6-page exercise for students to complete. This exercise contains questions that are based on the style of the exemplar questions released by AQA, so they should be ideal practice for your students. Answers to the exercise are included.

The spreadsheet is designed to make it easier and quicker to analyse certain aspects of the large data set. By simply selecting the 2 food categories you wish to investigate, the spreadsheet will:

1. Pull all the relevant data onto a single sheet
2. Calculate PMCC between the 2 food categories (for each region, and for each year)
3. Calculate quartiles and indicate the presence of any outliers
4. Draw scatter diagrams for each region, and for each year

The spreadsheet is a really useful tool to help you quickly select some data from the LDS that can be used to illustrate/discuss a particular aspect of the data or to practise a particular style of question.

Alternatively, the spreadsheet could be given to your students so that they are able to do some investigation of the data themselves, without needing to know much about using Excel.

The final resource is just a set of notes on how to use the spreadsheet and its functionality.