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It is vitally important to note that the requirements around the data collected for the Grade 12 PAT changed in 2021. The requirements are more specific, especially regarding the “extra data from a source other than your questionnaire” of previous years. You will be expected to collect data from a separate source and compare the information derived from your questionnaire to this extra data source — this will require a bit of extra planning to ensure that you can find data “external” data to match with your questionnaire data.
The Grade 12 PAT Learner Guide mentions working with a data set other than the data set derived from the Questionnaire. From what I can tell it then does not award any marks for this extra work in the marking rubric. Based on the principle of “better safe than sorry” as well as an opportunity to find data that allows additional opportunities for the use of all the required Excel functions, I always make certain it is done.
Be sure to make it extremely easy for the marker and moderator to see your “extra” dataset. Work on an extra worksheet that is clearly labelled!
In this post:
1. Example 1
In my post Phase 2 Excel analysis I discuss how to fulfil the requirements for the “Level 4” analysis. Finding a data set specifically for this purpose makes a lot of sense.
In Phase 1 of my Ice Cream PAT example, I researched a source that provided data regarding the annual consumption of ice cream in South Africa. In line with that data set, I located a data set from an American website containing similar data for the annual consumption of ice cream in America. This is my “additional data set”.
As a bonus, this data set needs to be converted from gallons to litres and this gives me the opportunity to use the CONVERT function which is not in the syllabus.
2. Reverse-engineer chart data
You may battle to find a suitable data set but chance upon a chart that represents a relevant dataset. In that case, copy-paste the chart image into your worksheet and then type out the data that it represents (this will only be possible if the actual data points are labelled with data values).
Below is a chart created from the data in the screenshot above. By looking at the chart below, you could easily capture the data in an Excel worksheet, ending up with what you see in the above screenshot! Remember to paste the chart you used into the worksheet and also record the details so that you can credit it!
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