1
Decide whether you would use primary or secondary data for these
investigations.
a The predicted population in the UK over the next 50 years.
b The hours of sport done each week by pupils in the UK.
c The style of jeans preferred by pupils in your class.
d The number of goals scored by Manchester United last season.
e The number of left-handed pupils in your school.
f The number of taxis waiting at your nearest railway station at 6 pm on a
weekday.
2 Write whether the data in each set is discrete or continuous and explain how
you decided.
a Year 9 examination results.
b The times taken by pupils in your class to run 100 m in a race.
c The heights of sunflowers in a field.
d The weights of books in the school bags of pupils in your class.
e The number of pupils in your class.
f The distances jumped by the long jump team on sports day.
g The time taken by your classmates to get to school.
h The age of each pupil in your class on their last birthday.
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Statistics S1.1 Collecting data
3 Write whether each set of data is qualitative or quantitative.
If the data is quantitative, state whether it is discrete or
continuous and explain how you decided.
a The heights of pupils in your year.
b Favourite sports personalities.
c The foot lengths of pupils in your year.
d The shoe sizes of pupils in your year.
e The colours of the cars in the school car park.
f Different forms of renewable energy.
g The names of pupils in your year.
4 Write whether each method of selecting a sample might give biased data, and if
so why.
a You want to investigate the favourite computer games of pupils in your
school. You select a sample of 15 girls and 5 boys in your year.
b You want to investigate the amount of sleep pupils in your school get.
You ask pupils in the first two years.
c You want to investigate the music preferred by young people. You ask young
people in the high street between 9 am and 10 am on Saturday morning.
d The government wants to find pupils’ opinions of the range of sport offered
in schools. It asks pupils from all the schools in Birmingham.
e A local political party want to know the voting intentions of the adults
in a town of 50 000 people. It asks 70 people using the shopping mall on
Monday morning.
5 A television talent show invites people to vote for their favourite singer.
Do you think unbiased results would be obtained from each of these methods
of data collection? Explain your answer for each part.
a Viewers must phone to vote for their favourite singer.
b Viewers must text to vote for their favourite singer.
c Viewers must vote online for their favourite singer.
d Viewers could choose their own method of voting for their favourite singer.
38
Statistics S1.1 Collecting data
6 You think that, in your school, most pupils’ favourite meal is Chinese.
Write how to select an unbiased sample of pupils to test this idea.
7 The following data collection question could be improved.
Write a better version with response boxes for the answers.
What kind of cool music do you like? Indie, rock, hard rock or metal?
8 Design a tally chart to collect data on the activities that pupils in your class
take part in.
9 You plan to survey the pupils in your class to find out about how they spend
their free time.
a Write suitable questions to find the following information, trial them on a
small number of respondents and refine them if necessary.
i Favourite leisure activity
ii Hours of sport played each week
iii Hours spent on the internet each week
b Write two more questions you could include in the survey.
10 Luke and some of his friends plan to make and sell a school newspaper.
Some things they will need to consider are:
• what sort of articles to include
• how much the newspaper should cost
• how often they should produce the newspaper
Design a questionnaire they could use to help them produce a successful
newspaper.
11 Design a questionnaire to determine the attitude of pupils in your class to
buying fair-trade goods.
39
Statistics S1.1 Collecting data
12 Here are some facts from the 2001 UK census.
• 11.7 million dependent children live in the UK.
• 65% of children live with their natural parents.
• Nearly 1 in 4 dependent children live with a single adult.
• More than 1 in 10 children live in a step-family.
a Write 11.7 million in figures and in words.
b What is meant by a ‘dependent’ child?
c Approximately how many children live with their natural parents?
Give your answer to the nearest million.
d Approximately how many children live with a single adult in the UK?
Give your answer to the nearest million.
e Copy and complete this table, rounding the percentages so they add up
to 100%.
Approximate percentage
Living with natural parents
Living with a single adult
Living in a step-family
f Explain why the figures in part e are approximations.
13 The population on census day in 2001 is shown in the table.
Actual Percentage of the total Population, in
population population to 1 d.p. millions, to 1 d.p.
England 49 138 831
Scotland 5 062 011
Wales 2 903 085
Northern 1 685 267
Ireland
Total UK
population
Copy and complete the table by first calculating the total population of the UK.
40
Statistics S1.1 Collecting data
14 There were 171 million visits to the cinema in 2004.
a Write down 171 million in figures and words.
b Approximately how many cinema visits are there each month?
c Is the number of cinema visits the same as the number of people visiting
the cinema? Explain your answer.
d About half the visits to cinemas are made by 15–24 year olds.
Approximately how many cinema visits are made by 15–24 year olds
each month?
15 The table shows data for the US states of Florida and Wyoming in 2006 from
the US Census Bureau.
Use the data to answer the questions. Explain your answers.
Florida Wyoming
Population 18 251 243 522 830
People per square mile 296 5
Land area (square miles) 53 926.82 97 100.4
Dentists 6 906 221
Amusement parks 44 0
Fast food restaurants 13 359 461
Toy stores 559 13
Video/disc rental stores 907 37
Zoos and botanical gardens 54 0
Candy and nut stores 189 22
Pet and pet-supply stores 655 0
a Do you think the same type of person would like to visit Florida and
Wyoming? Give reasons for your answer.
b Which state is larger and by how much?
c Which state would a group that likes wide open spaces probably choose
to visit?
d Where would a family with children be more likely to go on holiday?
Explain your answer.
41
Statistics S1.1 Collecting data
16 These are the results for 26 pupils in a mathematics examination.
70 57 55 56 69 66 65
74 78 60 86 67 68
76 91 90 87 88 70 63
70 79 85 68 72 66
a Copy and complete the grouped frequency table.
Mark in Tally Frequency
examination
50–59
60–69
70–79
80–89
90–99
b Which class interval has the greatest number of pupils?
17 These are the heights to the nearest centimetre of 24 male pupils.
133 150 142 139 142 129
158 144 159 135 134 146
150 168 188 136 172 153
140 170 155 138 176 158
a Copy and complete this grouped frequency table.
Height of pupil (cm) Tally Frequency
120–129
130–139
b Which class interval has the greatest number of pupils?
c Use the ungrouped data to find the range of heights.
42
Statistics S1.1 Collecting data
18 a These were the goals scored by the top 24 goal scorers during one season’s
premier league football matches. For example, the top footballer scored
42 goals during this season.
42 33 30 23 23 21 21 20 20 19 18 16
15 15 13 13 13 13 12 11 11 11 11 11
Choose suitable class intervals and put the information into a grouped
frequency table.
b These were the goals scored by the top goal scorers during another season’s
premier league football matches. The top footballer scored 33 goals during
this season.
33 23 23 23 23 22 21 19 18 17 17 16 15
14 14 14 13 13 13 12 12 12 12 12 12
Put the information into a grouped frequency table with the same class
intervals as in part a.
c Why do you think there are 24 top goal scorers for the first season but
25 top goal scorers for the second season?
d In which season were more goals scored? Explain your answer.
19 These are the grade boundaries for a mock examination in data handling.
The paper is marked out of 80. A student who achieves between 72 and 80
marks is awarded an A* grade, a student who achieves between 64 and 71 is
awarded an A grade and so on.
A* A B C D E
Minimum mark 72 64 56 48 40 36
These are the results of the data handling mock examination for one class.
79 55 56 52 45 63 62 48 39 44 75 70 61 68
50 61 58 57 66 49 51 75 33 48 54 64 54 39
a Put the results into a grouped frequency table.
b How many students got an A grade in the mock examination?
c Pupils who got a C, D or E grade will be given extra tuition.
What percentage of pupils will have extra tuition?
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