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AQA GCSE Statistics revision

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE Statistics 8382. Seventeen of them, fifteen to twenty-eight minutes each, across the enquiry cycle and all five sections of the specification. **The set is built around doing statistics rather than naming it.** Twenty questions ask the student to type a value rather than pick one, and only four of those prompts name the operation, so deciding what to calculate stays with the student. That is a better ratio than almost any other subject on this site. The other thing worth pointing at is an activity on graphical misrepresentation, where a student marks the misleading feature on a chart: the truncated axis, the unequal bar width, the scale chosen to flatter. That is the skill this qualification exists to teach and it is rarely resourced properly.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE Statistics 8382. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

The activity about being lied to

Statistics is the only GCSE whose central skill is scepticism. A student who leaves it able to say why a chart is misleading has got more out of school than one who can compute a standard deviation.

One of these seventeen activities is about exactly that. Recognising and critiquing graphical misrepresentation puts charts in front of a student and asks them to mark the problem on the image: the axis that does not start at zero, the bar that is twice as wide as its neighbour, the pictogram whose symbols scale in two dimensions for a one-dimensional change, the range chosen to make a flat trend look like a cliff.

It uses a hotspot rather than a written description, which matters. A student who can write "the axis is misleading" as a rehearsed phrase has not necessarily seen the axis. Pointing at it proves they have.

Histograms and frequency density uses the same interaction for the unequal-width case, which is the single most reliable source of lost marks in this subject.

The calculation demand is high, and that is unusual here

Twenty of the questions in this set ask the student to type a value rather than choose from options. Across this site that is common enough. What is not common is the wording.

Only four of those twenty prompts name the operation. The rest describe a situation and leave the student to work out that this is a frequency density question, or a standardisation, or an interquartile range. That is the examined skill, and it is the thing a multiple-choice question cannot reach.

Five activities carry most of that load, and they are the longest in the set at twenty-six to twenty-eight minutes: averages and skewness, measures of spread and outliers, trends and line of best fit, index numbers and rates of change, and correlation with Spearman's and Pearson's.

The correlation one deserves its own mention. Knowing how to compute a coefficient is worth less than knowing which coefficient the data allows, and students lose marks on the choice rather than the arithmetic.

Across the whole enquiry cycle

The specification runs a statistical enquiry cycle through every paper as a cross-cutting requirement, and then splits the content into initial planning, data collection, data visualisation, statistical measures, and interpretation and inference.

All of it is represented: an activity on the cycle itself, then planning and investigation design, data types and sources, sampling methods, questionnaire design and data cleaning, and on through the visualisation and calculation activities to probability, distributions and standardisation.

Our Edexcel GCSE Statistics activities take the enquiry cycle as the organising spine. This set is weighted differently, towards the visualisation and inference end, so a department teaching either specification may find something useful in both.

Using them

The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint and share one link. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

Students taking this alongside GCSE Maths will find the overlap covered from the other side at Edexcel GCSE Mathematics.

What this page does not do

It does not supply a data set to investigate. The enquiry cycle is covered as a method, and the actual investigation is your department's.

It does not teach the use of a spreadsheet, which many departments build into the course.

It is not a scheme of work. For a shape to drop these into, see how to structure a GCSE revision programme.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Statistics activity for AQA

17 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE Statistics (8382).

See all 17, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA Statistics 22 minutes

Recognising and Critiquing Graphical Misrepresentation

15 steps, 10 interactive, 11 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

A bar chart shows three values, 100, 105 and 110, with the vertical axis starting at 95. What is wrong, and how should a critique put it?

AQA Statistics 24 minutes

Histograms and Frequency Density (Equal and Unequal Width)

15 steps, 10 interactive, 9 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

You have the times taken by 200 runners to finish a race, grouped into classes of different widths. Why is a histogram the right choice, and why must the vertical axis be frequency density?

AQA Statistics 26 minutes

Correlation Vocabulary: Spearman's vs Pearson's Coefficients

14 steps, 9 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Independent study Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

A study collects data on people aged 20 to 60. Someone uses the line of best fit to estimate a value for a person aged 75. What is that, and why does it matter?

Common questions

Do students actually calculate, or recognise?

Calculate. Twenty questions across the set ask for a typed value, and only four of those name the operation, so the student decides what to work out as well as how. Frequency density, standardised scores, capture-recapture, interquartile range and Spearman's rank all appear.

Is there anything on misleading graphs?

An activity of its own, and it is the one to look at first. Truncated axes, unequal bar widths, 3D effects and cherry-picked scales, with the student pointing at the offending feature on the chart rather than describing it.

How does it compare with Edexcel Statistics?

Different emphasis. Our Edexcel set is organised around the enquiry cycle as the spine. This one is heavier on the visualisation and inference end, with the longest activities on calculation and correlation.

How long are they?

Fifteen to twenty-eight minutes, averaging twenty-one. The five calculation activities are the longest, at twenty-six to twenty-eight minutes each.

Is Spearman's rank covered?

Yes, alongside Pearson's, in an activity about telling them apart and knowing which the data allows. Choosing the wrong coefficient is a reliable way to lose marks that have nothing to do with arithmetic.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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