Notes on the Large Data Set

OCR Mathematics B (MEI) (H630/H640)

LDS 8 used for:
H630/02 in June 2025
H640/02 in June 2026
These notes outline the requirements for OCR’s large data set for specification B(MEI), include
some notes on interesting features of the large data set and some links to some useful resources.

Please note that the approach outlined here and the suggested activities are suggestions only; you
are free to deliver this in any way that suits you, your students and your setting.

If you have any comments on the contents of this guide, including suggestions for other activities,
please get in touch with the Mathematics Subject Advisors at [email protected] .

In the ‘Overview’ section we take a look at the requirements in terms of teaching from the
Department for Education and in terms of assessment from Ofqual, and introduce one of the large
data sets chosen for OCR’s Maths B (MEI) specification. We also suggest some software you will
find useful when working with the LDS.

In the ‘Key Features’ section we will take a look at some important aspects of the structure and set
up of the data. We will also explore some aspects of data cleaning in this section, including a list of
things to look out for in the way that the data were presented by the London Datastore, along with
some ways to explore these issues and to set up your students to stumble across them.

In ‘Online resources’ we highlight some useful places to go for more contextual information, maps,
more data, tools and so on.

You can find teaching activities using the LDS within MEI’s Integral resources:
https://integralmaths.org/statistics.php

DISCLAIMER
This resource was designed using the most up to date information from the specification at the time it was published.
Specifications are updated over time, which means there may be contradictions between the resource and the
specification, therefore please use the information on the latest specification at all times. If you do notice a discrepancy
please contact us on the following email address: [email protected]

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Contents

1 Overview.....................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Introduction......................................................................................................................1
1.2 MEI Large Data Set 8 (for AS in June 2025 and A Level in June 2026).........................2
1.3 Why three large data sets for the MEI specification?......................................................3
1.4 Features of the three large data sets...............................................................................4
2 Key features of LDS 8.................................................................................................................6
2.1 Geography.......................................................................................................................6
2.2 Data cleaning and manipulation......................................................................................6
3 Online resources.........................................................................................................................9
3.1 Useful maps and additional information..........................................................................9
3.2 Other useful websites......................................................................................................9

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1 Overview
1.1 Introduction
All AS and A Level Mathematics for first teaching from September 2017 include the requirement
to work with one or more given large data sets (LDS). The criteria from the Department from
Education say that:

AS and A Level Mathematics specification must require students to:

 become familiar with one or more specific large data set(s) in advance of the final
assessment (the data must be real and sufficiently rich to enable the concepts and skills of
data presentation and interpretation in the specification to be explored)
 use technology such as spreadsheets or specialist statistical packages to explore the data
set(s)
 interpret real data presented in summary or graphical form
 use data to investigate questions arising in real contexts.

Specifications should require students to explore the data set(s) and associated contexts, during
their course of study to enable them to perform tasks that assume familiarity with the contexts,
the main features of the data and the ways in which technology can help explore the data.
Specifications should also require students to demonstrate the ability to analyse a subset of
features of the data using a calculator with standard statistical functions.

The pre-release LDS is primarily a resource for the classroom, to encourage the use of real,
LDSs when learning statistics. Some questions in the assessment, on the statistics content, will
be set in the context of the LDS, in such a way as to provide an advantage to students who have
spent time exploring the data. However, this is only a small part of the exam and students will
not have access to the LDS, or to a computer, in the assessment. The focus of this resource is
very much on teaching and learning.

Note that the first bullet point above includes the phrase “to enable the concepts and skills of
data presentation and interpretation in the specification to be explored”. This refers to that
particular section of the content document, i.e. section D of the OCR Mathematics B
specification. You are welcome to explore the full range of concepts and skills, but the focus of
the requirement, and therefore of the assessment, is on data presentation and interpretation.

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1.2 MEI Large Data Set 8 (for AS in June 2025 and A Level in June
2026)
OCR’s MEI Large Data Set 8 consists of data about boroughs in London together with some
comparative data for other areas in the UK. Data for the City of London has been included
where it is available. The 32 boroughs together with the City of London make up London.
Further data are available through the area profiles on the London Datastore.

The data set includes an information sheet which describes the various terms used. Rather
than repeat this information here, please refer to that sheet. The terminology and information
on the metadata sheet of the LDS is part of the data set, so students are assumed to be at
least familiar with that terminology and information. That’s part of the point of putting it there,
i.e. that you then know that these are the words students should understand. However, the
assessment is not a test of memorisation of the details of the data, only that students have
worked with the data enough to have some familiarity with the key features. We will take a
more in-depth look at some features in section 2.

Please note that further commentary on specific aspects of the LDS can be found within the
resources on the OCR website for this qualification, on the London Datastore and in
resources in Integral.

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1.3 Why three large data sets for the MEI specification?
The large data sets associated with AS and A Levels in Mathematics should serve two
purposes: they are a teaching resource and they provide a context for setting examination
questions. Our hope is that teachers will use all three for teaching, but for each cohort of
students just one will be the focus of some of the questions in the exam. Each data set will
be clearly labelled as to when it is used.

June 2022 June 2023 June 2024 June 2025 June 2026 June 2027

AS 5 6 7 8 9 10

A Level 4 5 6 7 8 9

So if you teach A Level Maths over two years, then the class you start teaching in September
2024 will see some questions on LDS_8 in their AS exams in 2025 (if they sit AS) and their A
Level exams in 2026, as the following table demonstrates.

Publish June 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

Start teaching Sept 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

AS Exam (if sat) June 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026

A Level Exam June 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027

Large Data Set 5 6 7 8 9

MEI and OCR have some experience of pre-release data from our Core Maths B
qualification. The CIA World Factbook data set that forms the current pre-release for that
qualification became the basis for our thinking and development for the reformed AS and A
Level (LDS 1). We tried to write different types of questions using that data set, based on A
Level content. When doing this, we realised that things in some countries have changed
quite a lot during the lifetime of the legacy mathematics specifications so the data set would
need to be updated from time to time - we didn’t want students learning about how things
used to be in the world 15 years ago if that no longer reflected the current position.

We were aware that some students (and maybe teachers) did not enjoy the statistics in the
legacy Mathematics A Levels. We think that this may be because in mathematics the focus
has traditionally been on learning statistical techniques without much focus on why you might
want to use them. The large data sets provide a context to use the techniques and interpret
the results.

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The use of large data sets in teaching and examining A Level Mathematics is new – it is an
opportunity to make the statistics students learn more similar to the ways they will use
statistics in future study and work. We thought it was important to review the data sets used
and to make sure they continued to be suitable for examining. This needs a three-year cycle
– two years for using the data set in teaching and a year to review and update if necessary.
LDS 7 was a refreshment of the data from LDS 1 and LDS 4, Similarly LDS 8 is the
refreshment of LDS 2 and LDS 5. LDS 9 may be a refreshment of LDS 6, or a new data set,
dependent on the post assessment review of the questions set in the live assessment.

1.4 Features of the three large data sets

The data in the CIA World Factbook is grouped by country; we realised that data based on
individuals would allow better teaching of distributions. There aren’t many publicly available
data sets which contain ungrouped data on individuals. The NHANES data set, from
American health surveys, is often used in statistics courses and it contains a wealth of data
so we decided to use that as one data set.

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Having got data about countries and data about (American) individuals, we thought it would
be good to have some England-based data – the London Datastore is a good place to find
suitable data and so we ended up with the following three initial data sets which we hope will
appeal to students with different interests in terms of other subjects they are taking.

 LDS_1 Data about countries

 LDS_2 Data about boroughs of London and the regions of England
 LDS_3 Health data about individuals
 LDS_4 Data about countries
 LDS_5 Data about boroughs of London and the regions of England
 LDS_6 Heath data about individuals
 LDS_7 Data about countries

We wanted to make the process of working with data manageable for teachers, educationally
valuable for students and workable for examining. We decided that three data sets – one per
cohort – updated on a rotating cycle would do the trick. In the first year of teaching the new
specifications, teachers might choose to work with one data set. The next year, they could
still use the lessons that had gone well as well as introducing the next data set and so on.

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2 Key features of LDS 8
2.1 Geography
The data include area codes which are used by the ONS when publishing regional
information; this will make it easier to use additional data when working with the LDS. The
London boroughs are included in the OCR Specification A LDS; you can get census data for
the London boroughs from there.

2.2 Data cleaning and manipulation

This list includes a few details covering data cleaning issues, and any data manipulation
which was done to create a single data set from all the fields of data, along with a couple of
possible stumbling blocks to watch out for.

1. Data fields. The Information Sheet in the LDS gives details of where to download the data
from.

2. Inner and outer London. For a comparison of two different definitions of inner and outer
London see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_London . The ONS definition is used in the
LDS. The box-and-whisker plots below show median house prices for inner and outer
London for 2004. Using filtering in Excel allows the relevant data to be selected easily.
You may want students to explore what difference it makes if Newham and Haringey are
classed as outer London rather than inner London.

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3. Drawing graphs and charts. The LDS is a set of time series. You may want to draw the
following types of graphs and charts. In each case you will probably find it easier to copy
the data you are working with to another Excel spreadsheet; this will make it easier to
select the data you want.

 graphs for one time series for regions of London or for regions of England

 a series of box-and-whisker plots to compare years within a time series or to compare

regions of London with regions of England for one particular year

 a scatter diagram using data from two different time series for the same year for either
regions of London or for regions of England.

You may want to compare a graph for the regions of London with the same graph for the
regions of England but they should usually be done on different axes as London as a
whole is included in the English regions.

4. Mean and Median income of taxpayers. The data are based on a survey; further statistics
can be downloaded at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-incomes-
statistics

5. Missing data. You might want to draw scatter diagrams between different data fields using
Excel. For example, a scatter diagram of GCSE results 2011-12 against median house
price 2011 for the London boroughs.

Excel draws the scatter diagram correctly as follows:

London boroughs
100
80
60
GCSE
2011-12 40
20
0
0 200000 400000 600000 800000 1000000
Median House Price

Copying the two data columns into GeoGebra gives the following graph. It may not be
obvious that it is not the same but the point at about (600 000, 70) in the Excel graph,
representing Westminster does not exist in the GeoGebra graph but the point at about
(400 000, 80) in the GeoGebra graph does not exist in the Excel graph or in the LDS.

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 GeoGebra has not interpreted the #N/A symbols correctly. If you try to find the correlation
coefficient in Excel, the existence of #N/A in some cells will prevent the automatic
correlation function from calculating.

Different software uses different methods of showing that a data value is missing. #N/A
ensures that Excel draws graphs correctly but will prevent use of formulas on the data.
You may want to use the filter function in Excel to filter out rows which have #N/A in the
fields you are working with before copying into other software or when doing a calculation.
Some fields have all or nearly all data so you won’t want to delete all rows which include
#N/A anywhere.

6. London and its boroughs. If you find summary statistics for the data set of median house
prices of the 33 London boroughs for 2013, the median is 326 475 and the mean is 367
983 (to the nearest £). The median house price for London as a whole is 323 000. The
value for the whole of London for any data set cannot be found by averaging the borough
values because each borough value represents a data set of different size to the other
borough values.

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3 Online resources
3.1 Useful maps and additional information
Please note, these links are offerred as additional informaion which students may find interesting
and useful; it is not expected that you would use all of these with students.

London area profiles

The London borough profiles from https://data.london.gov.uk/london-area-profiles/ give a great

deal of information about all the London boroughs.

Regions of England

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/RCI/#?vis=nuts2.labourmarket&lang=en Life expectancy,

unemployment and more broken down by regions of EU countries. The regions of England in the
LDS are NUTS1 regions in Eurostat (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUTS_1_statistical_regions_of_England and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUTS_statistical_regions_of_the_United_Kingdom). You can zoom
in to the Eurostat map to just see the UK if you don’t want to compare with the rest of Europe.

3.2 Other useful websites

As mentioned earlier, a classic spreadsheet is not the only way to interact with the LDS.
These links are a starting point for exploring other tools.

Tinkerplots

TinkerPlots is a simple, but powerful, data visualisation and modelling tool developed for use
by schools.

https://www.tinkerplots.com/

CODAP

Online data visualisation based on TinkerPlots and Fathom – just drag a CSV file in and off
you go – free to use and needs no download.

https://codap.concord.org/

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Geogebra

Geogebra is a free dynamic mathematics tool, including graphing, 3D graphing, geometry,

CAS and (most importantly) a spreadsheet. The website also hosts a vast collection of
materials.

https://www.geogebra.org/

JASP

This is free statistical software which has been developed with the support of the University
of Amsterdam. It is fairly intuitive to use for people who can use spreadsheets, comes with
online support materials (in English) and has some features which are not available in either
Excel or GeoGebra. There are more features than are needed for A Level but this software is
a good starting place if you want to try specialist statistical software. For Windows, MAC or
Linux.

https://jasp-stats.org/

Finally, R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It is readily
available on a wide variety of operating systems. The interface and language may take some
getting used to, but the flexibility and power rewards the effort.

https://www.r-project.org/

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