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Exercise 1
Match the correct unit of measurement with each item to be measured.
| Unit of measurement | Item being measured |
| degrees Celsius (°C ) | distance between London and Paris |
| kilometres (km) | weight of a pencil |
| kilometres per hour (km/h) | time taken to count to ten |
| seconds (sec) | temperature of a cup of coffee |
| millilitres (ml) | amount of orange juice in a glass |
| grams (g) | speed of a train |
There are a number of key terms that are useful to learn when working with numbers and data. Test your knowledge of these by completing the following exercises.
Exercise 2
Use the words in the box to complete these sentences. You might need to change the form of the word.
accurate calculation fraction measurement
aggregate / total capacity mass percentage
approximately estimated maximum / minimum round up / down
1 The ________of 9, 10, 24, 6, 8, 5 is 62. It is also known as the ________.
2 The ________of the lecture theatre is 200 people.
3 Economic forecasters have ________that the economy will grow by 0.5% next year.
4 There are ________300,000 international students studying in the UK.
5 The spreadsheet automatically ________or ________to the nearest whole number.
6 The ________loan available is £5,000 and the ________loan available is £500.
7 The ________of a bowling ball is 7.25 kilograms.
8 ________measurements are essential in many scientific experiments.
Exercise 3
Use another word in the box in Exercise 2 to describe each item below.
1 1/3 ________
2 245 × 6 ________
3 98% ________
4 100 ml ________
Exercise 4
Put the word in brackets into the correct form in each of these sentences.
1 The closest ________was 2 years 4 months. (estimate)
2 There are a number of different ways to ________an average. (calculate)
3 There are ________1.3 billion people in China. (approximate)
4 The ________of another variable completely changed the outcome of the experiment. (add)
5 The values were ________and then used to find the average. (total)
6 The answers were cross-checked to ________predict the outcome. (accurate)
What is statistics?
Every day in our lives, we hear and read about many different types of information in the form of data. Data can tell us interesting and important details about the world around us but it can be challenging to understand the facts and figures.
Statistics is a mathematical science that helps us to make sense of data that has been counted, measured, asked about or observed. It involves four main activities:
Glossary
method A method is a particular way of doing something.
technique A technique is a particular method of doing an activity, usually a method that involves practical skills.
Collecting data – first of all, we decide what type of data we are interested in, which method we shall use to collect the data, and where we would like to collect it from.
Organizing data – we use a range of different techniques to summarize the data we have collected so that we can see interesting features or patterns in the information.
Interpreting data – we use the results of calculations to help us make comparisons about different sets of data, to answer questions and make decisions about the world around us.
Glossary
feature A feature of something is an interesting or important part or characteristic of it.
Presenting data – when we have found out interesting facts about our data, then we will need to display and present the information to other people so that they can understand our conclusions.
Exercise 5
Choose a newspaper or news-related website and look for reports that use statistics to help explain the main points of the article. Think about these questions:
Statistics is important in many different subject areas. The following diagram lists some examples of the type of data that might be collected and used:
Some terminology
In statistics, we use two key words: variable and observation. It is important to understand the difference in their meanings. A variable is a characteristic or an attribute that can have different values; an observation is the value of a variable that has actually been counted, measured or observed. Some variables are shown below, with a list of possible observations next to each one.
Glossary
variable