Sheet № 65 · Foundation + Higher · AQA · Edexcel · OCR
Bar Charts Pie Charts and Pictograms –
Bar charts, pie charts and pictograms are the most common ways to display data at Foundation level GCSE Maths. Every exam board — AQA, Edexcel and OCR — expects you to draw, read and interpret these charts accurately. Questions range from reading a single value off a bar chart to calculating angles for a pie chart and using a key to decod
§Key definitions
Question:
Thirty pupils were asked to name their favourite fruit. The results are shown below.
(b) Pie chart angles:
Total frequency = 8 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 7 = 30.
Question 1:
A pictogram shows how many ice creams a shop sold each day. The key says one icon = 10 ice creams. Monday shows 3 full icons and a half icon. How many ice creams were sold on Monday?
Question 2:
A pie chart is drawn for 90 people. The "walk" sector has an angle of 120°. How many people walk?
Question 3:
The table shows how 60 students travel to school.
§Formulas to memorise
Angle = (frequency ÷ total frequency) × 360°
Bars must be the same width with equal spacing.
Draw each bar to the correct height. Keep all bars the same width with equal gaps.
Calculate the angle for each category: angle = (frequency ÷ total) × 360°.
Worked example
Thirty pupils were asked to name their favourite fruit. The results are shown below. | Fruit | Apple | Banana | Orange | Grape | Strawberry | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Frequency | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 7 | (a) Draw a bar chart to represent this
Working:
⚠ Common mistakes
- ✗Starting the frequency axis at a number other than zero — this distorts the bars and loses marks.
- ✗Drawing bars of unequal width — all bars must be the same width.
- ✗Rounding pie chart angles carelessly — if your angles do not add up to 360°, adjust the last angle so the total is correct.
- ✗Forgetting the key on a pictogram — without the key, the chart is meaningless.
- ✗Misreading partial symbols — a quarter of a symbol does not equal one; it equals a quarter of the key value.
✦ Exam tips
- →Always use a ruler when drawing bar charts — freehand bars lose marks.
- →Use a protractor carefully for pie charts — measure from the line you have just drawn, not always from the same starting line. This prevents cumulative errors.
- →Show angle calculations — examiners want to see (frequency ÷ total) × 360, not just the final angle.
- →Dual bar charts — if asked to compare two data sets on the same chart, use side-by-side bars in different colours and include a key.
- →Link to averages — you may be asked to calculate the mean or mode from the same data. Revisit mean, median, mode and range for a refresher.