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Important Microsoft Excel formulas

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danieltennis:
Hi there,

I'm just starting to re-learn the functions of Excel and I was wondering if any of you knew the important formulas that an ITA student should know? If there are any resourceful websites or any informative textbook, please do mention them.

Once again, thanks. :)

Daniel.

hard:
i-mc2

IntoTheNewWorld:
Go through past exams and note down every single formula that they use. List them all on a page describing what it does, notation, and an example.

Edit: On further consideration and after reading posts below I see that this is probably better after you actually use the formulas in Excel. You'll spend many hours messing around with Excel formulas while doing SACs and such, the notes are probably for near the end of the year, to perfect the syntax, not before term starts. I kind of forgot that the syntax probably looks like gibberish if you haven't used them before

*Insert description here* Insert notes such as table must be sorted for VLOOKUP to work. I *think* you could put a zero somewhere and it won't need to be sorted, can't remember right now. VLOOKUP IS ESSENTIAL know how to use this perfectly

=VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, [range_lookup]) (just get this from excel or some list somewhere)
=VLOOKUP(D2,D3:E4,2,TRUE)

Other essential formulas

Sum
Product
Other basic mathematical ones probably
Average
If
Countif
Count
Max
Min

But basically some of these such as =Sum can be replaced with other methods, such as manually adding up cells, but you don't want to do that.

lol can't think of any other useful ones right now, you'll learn them all during your Excel SAC anyway. I think it's important to actually know how to write the formulas perfectly; being able to use them Excel is much easier than being able to conjure up perfect syntax on paper without having Excel guiding you step by step.

Glockmeister:
Yes, there was a heavy emphasis on formulae this year exam, which I'm pretty sure caught the state out (technical skills in IT:Apps are, on the whole, poorly taught). SmRandmAzn  has nailed most of the formula, but you could include countA( (that's an alpha-numeric version of Count)

One of the good thing about Excel formulas are that it is actually easy to learn, since most people would have access to Excal at home. All you need to do is to fire up Excal and have a muck around for a few hours with some dummy data. I find that by learning it this way, you learn the formulas far faster then using notes as you can see how each formula works in real life.

IntoTheNewWorld:

--- Quote from: Glockmeister on January 12, 2009, 05:16:53 pm ---Yes, there was a heavy emphasis on formulae this year exam, which I'm pretty sure caught the state out (technical skills in IT:Apps are, on the whole, poorly taught). SmRandmAzn  has nailed most of the formula, but you could include countA( (that's an alpha-numeric version of Count)

One of the good thing about Excel formulas are that it is actually easy to learn, since most people would have access to Excal at home. All you need to do is to fire up Excal and have a muck around for a few hours with some dummy data. I find that by learning it this way, you learn the formulas far faster then using notes as you can see how each formula works in real life.

--- End quote ---

Yeah I was really surprised at how in depth the Excel formula questions were...Many, many people can't be stuffed learning proper formulas and get owned on that section. Knowing how to write and apply formulas well will give you a distinct edge.

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