Cambridge International as and a level Economics Ebook

Data skill 1 – how to pick out the main 
features in a data set
Look at the data in Table 1. Th
is gives the average 
unemployment rates for the 27 countries that were 
members of the European Union in 2012.
Th
e fi rst skill you need to develop is what is known 
as ‘eyeballing’. All this means is looking at a data set and 
going down the columns (or across the rows) very quickly 
to pick out the main features. Th
is is a very useful thing to 
do, particularly in examinations when it could give you a 
clue as to what questions might follow.
Looking at 
Table 1,
you can quickly see that there is 
a wide variation in average unemployment rates for EU 
members in 2012. Spain had the highest rate at around 25%, 
whereas unemployment was lowest in Luxembourg at 5.1%.
Data skill 2 – how to calculate a simple 
average and know what it means
Th
e average is oft en used to summarise a particular set of 
data. In the case of 
Table 1
 – where it is shown as 10.5% – 
it is what is known as a ‘weighted average’, the weights 
Country
Percentage
Country
Percentage
Austria
4.3
Latvia
14.9
Belgium
7.6
Lithuania
13.3
Bulgaria
12.3
Luxembourg
5.1
Cyprus
11.9
Malta
6.4
Czech 
Republic
7.0
Netherlands
5.3
Denmark
7.5
Poland
10.1
Estonia
10.2
Portugal
15.9
Finland
7.7
Romania
7.0
France
10.2
Slovakia
14.0
Germany
5.5
Slovenia
8.9
Greece
24.3
Spain
25.0
Hungary
10.9
Sweden
8.0
Ireland
14.7
United 
Kingdom
7.9
Italy
10.7
Average 
EU 27
10.5