【明報專訊】Over the past three years (from 2016 to 2018), at least one question in Paper one of the HKDSE Liberal Studies examination has been a Data Response Question. It is thus necessary to know how to tackle this type of question.

◆Source A

A1：Youth population in employment by educational attainment (see table)

A2：Monthly income of young people (see table)

■Question and procedures in answering it

1. Referring to the data, identify the trends concerning the youth population in employment. (4 marks)

(1) Examine the wording of the question carefully

"Referring to the data"：Candidates can lose half of the marks if they use completely their own words to summarise the trends reflected by the data without quoting any numbers.

"identify the trends"：If the question only requires you to identify or describe the trend, candidates do not need to explain the reasons or the implications.

(2) Analyse the data

The question requires candidates to identify the ''trends'', so candidates have to figure out how different items change with time. Some candidates might think that a 4-mark question means that they only have to identify two trends. The truth is that they might be required to figure out two to four. So try to find as many trends as possible.

There are two ways to do this. The first is comparison: comparison between different years, and comparison between different categories. This applies to all charts except pie charts.

Sometimes there are quite many items in a chart. For example, table A2 lists five income groups. This is when we should summarise. We can summarise these five groups into three groups: income lower than HK$10,000, income between HK$10,000 and HK$20,000, and income higher than HK$20,000.

(3) Describe details

Describe the most important trends. Remember to quote and analyse the data (calculate the multiples or percentages).

From table A1:

? Fewer people with secondary education or lower qualifications: the percentage fell from 62.1% in 2006 to 38.6% in 2016, while the number fell by 50%.

? More people with tertiary education: the percentage rose from 37.9% in 2006 to 61.4%in 2016, while the number rose by 30%.

? Less working young people: the number fell by nearly 20% from nearly 360,000 people in 2006 to around 290,000 people in 2016.

From table A2:

? Rise in income in general for young people: the median rose by 54% from HK$7,000 in 2006 to HK$10,750 in 2016.

(4) Generalise about the whole situation by organising the data

If there are two graphs in the question, try to figure out the relationship between them. As can be seen in source A, improving qualifications for young people correlated with higher incomes. Try to explain and identify social phenomena by conceptualisation. For example, you can answer that "the fall in the working youth population shows an ageing population".

Text: 陳應聰, liberal studies teacher at STFA Lee Shau Kee College

Translation: Terence Yip

[通通識 第574期]