AVERAGE skips blank cells
Tuesday has no sales figure yet. In B7, use AVERAGE on B2:B6 to get the average of the days that do have one.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Day | Sales | ||||
| 2 | Monday | 120 | ||||
| 3 | Tuesday | |||||
| 4 | Wednesday | 90 | ||||
| 5 | Thursday | 150 | ||||
| 6 | Friday | 60 | ||||
| 7 | ||||||
| 8 |
Need help?
Why this works
AVERAGE ignores blank cells and text, so it divides 420 by 4, not by 5. A cell that holds 0 is different: it is a number and pulls the average down.
Common mistake: Typing 0 for the missing day. A 0 is a number, so it pulls the average down; leave the cell blank.
The answer
- B7
=AVERAGE(B2:B6)
+15 points