Hi Just wondering if we receive a spreadsheet with data for the CP2 exam Paper 1 are we expected to copy this data into a new spreadsheet and start the modelling in the new spreadsheet? I believe for Paper 2 we work on the spreadsheet provided. Thank you
Hi, Yes, best practice would be to keep the data you receive as is, perhaps label the tab as "raw data". Then to make a copy of the same sheet and start doing the checks and amendments such that if anything happens within that worksheet you still have a copy of the original data. I wish you luck if you are sitting for CP2.
Thank you for getting back to me. Apologies if I wasn't clear, but my question is more should we be starting in the excel spreadsheet they provide with the data for our modelling, or should we be copying the data across to a completely new spreadsheet and starting from there (or does it not matter)?
Hi, Doesn't matter. I would advise you to work in the same spreadsheet and not to lose time in the exams creating and copying in an another spreadsheet. 3hrs 15minutes do pass by quite quick! Trust the same assists.
As a slightly related point: I read an examiners report recently suggesting that it was better style to link to the original data rather than take a copy of the hardcoded original data. This data validation step is the only place where I was using hard coded numbers previously and I never really considered it. For this reason I was intending to copy the sheet (to get the structure, headings etc.) but then link the new worksheet to the original data worksheet before making adjustments. I may be overthinking this?
The process I'd usually follow for the data checks in Paper 1 is: Have a "Raw data" worksheet with the data that's been provided to you Do checks on this raw data within the "Raw data" worksheet, e.g. summary stats (you may need to add some more rows/columns to make room for these checks, but that's OK) Copy the "Raw data" worksheet and rename the copy "Clean data" Link the data in the "Clean data" worksheet to the "Raw data" worksheet, e.g. if my first data item is in cell C8, then cell C8 of my "Clean data" worksheet has the formula ='Raw data'!C8 Where my checks identify errors in the raw data, hard code over these in the "Clean data" worksheet and use a different background colour for these hardcoded cells to draw attention to the fact these are different from the raw data Once the necessary corrections have been made, the checks in the "Clean data" worksheet should all pass This approach shows the user of the spreadsheet that we had some issues with the raw data, but we've sorted them out in the clean data. You can then use the clean data for your main calculations, but the original raw data is preserved. I hope that makes sense!
