GCSE Maths Coursework
Handling Data
My aim is to find out what is the most common number(s) (Mode) of letters in a word and which types of newspapers (Broadsheet) and (Tabloid) have the most longest and shortest words.
My plan is to count the number of letters in each word of 2 different newspapers and article and to see which Newspaper has the longer words and the shortest words. I will use a tally chart to present my data and other graphs and tables. I will use the following numbers of letters in each word 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. My sample size is 50 words. I chose this because it doesn't take long and gives a suitable amount of results to prove my hypothesis. The 2 papers I am going to analyse for this hypothesis are The Sun (Tabloid) and Telegraph (Broadsheet). Both articles are involving films. I think that the Telegraph will have the longest words and the tabloid will have the shorter words. I think The Broadsheet will have longer words because normally an older audience is more likely to read Broadsheet rather than read Tabloid. I think The Sun I will have smaller words because it for a wider aged audience. Also I think that 3,4 or 5 will be the mode numbers. I thought this was because 4,5,6 are the around the average between the numbers of letter I test 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12.
I have drawn a tally chart to note down my data.
The Sun (Tabloid)
Article
Number Of Letters
Tally
Frequency
I
2
IIIII IIIII
0
3
IIIII IIIII I
1
4
IIIII IIII
9
5
IIIII II
7
6
IIIII
5
7
IIII
4
8
I
9
-
-
0
-
-
1
-
-
2
II
2
Using my results I am able to work the mean, mode and median for The Sun (Tabloid).
Mean: 1+ 10+ 11+ 9+ 7+ 5+ 4+ 1+ 0+ 0+ 0+ 2 = 50
50 / 12 = 4.17 (2 d.p)
This shows that the mean number of letters in each word is 4.17
Mode: The Mode number of letters in each word is 3. There were 11 words that contained 3 letters.
Median: 1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,12,12. The Median is 4
Telegraph (Broadsheet)
Article
Number Of Letters
Tally
Frequency
II
2
2
III
3
3
IIIII IIIII IIIII
5
4
IIIII IIIII II
2
5
IIIII I
6
6
IIIII I
6
7
IIII
4
8
-
9
I
0
-
-
1
-
-
2
I
Using this graph I am able to ...
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Median: 1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,12,12. The Median is 4
Telegraph (Broadsheet)
Article
Number Of Letters
Tally
Frequency
II
2
2
III
3
3
IIIII IIIII IIIII
5
4
IIIII IIIII II
2
5
IIIII I
6
6
IIIII I
6
7
IIII
4
8
-
9
I
0
-
-
1
-
-
2
I
Using this graph I am able to work the mean, mode and median for The Sun (Tabloid).
Mean: 2+ 3+ 15+ 12+ 6+ 6+ 4+ 0+ 1+ 0+ 0+ 1 = 50
50 / 12 = 4.17 (2 d.p)
This shows that the mean number of letters in each word is 4.17
Mode: The Mode number of letters in each word is 3. There were 15 words that contained 3 letters.
Median: 1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,9,12. The Median is 4.
I found that overall in both articles ,3 was the mode as in The Sun the number of words that had 3 letters was 11 and the Telegraph had 15 3 letter words. I predicted that 3,4 or 5 would be the mode. I my hypothesis was correct. I think I got this correct because 4,5,6 are the around the average between the numbers of letter I test 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. I also found out that The Sun had longer words as you can see from the bar charts above. I think I got this wrong because my hypothesis (I think Telegraph will have longer words because normally an older audience is more likely to read Telegraph rather than read The Sun) was incorrect. I will do another test to try prove my hypothesis. In my second hypothesis I will compare two different (Tabloid and Broadsheet) my final hypothesis was correct as I thought that tabloid would have shorter words than the broadsheet. As the tabloid had 10 -2 letter words where as the broadsheet had only 3 - 2 letter words. I got this correct because my hypothesis (I think The Sun I will have smaller words because it for a wider aged audience) Was correct.
Second Hypothesis
My aim is to find out what is the most common number(s) (Mode) of letters in a word and which types of newspapers (Broadsheet) and (Tabloid) have the most longest and shortest words.
My plan is to count the number of letters in each word of 2 different newspapers and article and to see which Newspaper has the longer words and the shortest words. I will use a tally chart to present my data and other graphs and tables. I will use the following numbers of letters in each word 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. My sample size is 50 words. I chose this because it doesn't take long and gives a suitable amount of results to prove my hypothesis. The 2 papers are different to the first one's I chose. I chose to change these because I got one of my predictions wrong. So I am going to try it again to see any different results. Before I chose to use The Sun (Tabloid) and Telegraph (Broadsheet). This time I have chosen to do Daily Mirror (Tabloid) and The Independent (Broadsheet). Both articles are involving sport. My hypothesis is the same as the first "I think that the Telegraph will have the longest words and the tabloid will have the shorter words. I think The Broadsheet will have longer words because normally an older audience is more likely to read Broadsheet rather than read Tabloid. I think The Sun I will have smaller words because it for a wider aged audience. Also I think that 3,4 or 5 will be the mode numbers. I thought this was because 4,5,6 are the around the average between the numbers of letter I test 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12."
Daily Mirror (Tabloid)
Article
Number Of Letters
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0
1
2
Frequency
2
7
8
6
7
8
8
3
-
Mean: 2+ 7+ 8+ 6+ 7+ 8+ 8+ 1+ 1+ 3+ 1+ 0 = 50
50/12= 4.17(2 d.p)
Mode: The Mode numbers of letters in each word are 3,6,7. There were 8 words that contained 3,6,7 letters.
Median: 1,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,8,9,10,10,10,11. The Median is 5
Independent (Tabloid)
Article
Number Of Letters
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0
1
2
Frequency
4
7
5
2
3
9
4
2
Mean: 4+7+5+12+3+9+4+1+1+2+1+1 = 50
50/12= 4.17(2 d.p)
Mode: The Mode number of letters in each word is 4. There were 12 words that contained 4 letters.
Median: 1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,8,9,10,10,11,12. The median is 4
A graph to compare number of letters in each word for Tabloid and Broadsheet.
I chose the same hypothesis to extent my results and see how accurate my prediction is. On my first hypothesis I got most of it correct. One thing was incorrect so I tried to extend my results and see if I get anything different. I predicted wither 3,4 or 5 would be the model number. Again I was correct. This was correct because 4,5,6 are the around the average between the numbers of letter I test 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. As you can see from the bar chart above it compares both articles. It shows the tabloid again had longer words. This proves that my hypothesis is incorrect. So this shows that it the Telegraph NOT will have longer words because normally an older audience is more likely to read Telegraph rather than read The Sun. I can use this information for my next hypothesis. I also found that again I was correct that the tabloids do have shorter words than broadsheets. As the tabloid had 8 -3 letter words where as the broadsheet had only 5 -3 letter words.
Final Hypothesis
My aim is to find out what is the most common number(s)
(Mode) of letters in a word and which types of newspapers (Broadsheet) and (Tabloid) have the most longest and shortest words.
My plan is to count the number of letters in each word of 2 different newspapers and article and to see which Newspaper has the longer words and the shortest words. I will use a tally chart to present my data and other graphs and tables. I will use the following numbers of letters in each word 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. My sample size is 50 words. I chose this because it doesn't take long and gives a suitable amount of results to prove my hypothesis. For my final hypothesis again I have chose two different papers. So far I have chose to use The Sun (Tabloid) and Telegraph (Broadsheet) for my first hypothesis. I chose to do Daily Mirror (Tabloid) and The Independent (Broadsheet). This time I have chose The Daily Star (Tabloid) and The Times (Broadsheet).This time I am only going to see what paper has the longer words. As this was my only incorrect hypothesis. This time I think that the broadsheet will have longer words. I think this is possible because I predicted in my previous hypothesis that the tabloid will have the longer words as you can see from pervious results this had been incorrect. So I have decided to change my hypothesis.
The Daily Star (Tabloid)
Article
Number Of Letters
Tally
Frequency
I
2
IIIII
5
3
IIIII IIIII I
1
4
IIIII III
8
5
III
3
6
IIIII IIIII
0
7
IIIII II
7
8
II
2
9
II
2
0
I
1
-
-
2
-
-
The Times (Broadsheet)
Article
Number Of Letters
Tally
Frequency
I
2
IIIII IIII
9
3
IIIII IIIII
0
4
IIIII III
8
5
II
2
6
IIIII I
6
7
IIIII II
7
8
I
9
II
2
0
II
2
1
I
2
