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Excel Chapter 7

Chapter Demonstrable Skills

After completing the Excel Chapter 7 portion of the Excel & Data Analysis unit, students will be able to:

Demonstrable Skill Learning Activities
& Informal Assessments
Formal Assessments
(excluding Exams)
Write nested IF functions.
  • Excel: Formulas & Functions II Participation Project
Use AND, OR, and NOT functions.
  • Excel: Formulas & Functions II Participation Project

Chapter Notes

Nested IF statements

In Excel Chapter 2, we first learned about IF statements [1].  Chapter 7 adds some complexity [2].  Instead of a simple IF statement, we put some additional tests in place.  A simple IF statement looks like this-

=IF(A1>59.5, "Pass", "Fail")

A nested IF statement will allow you to make a much more complex evaluation.  Instead of simply doing pass/fail, you can evaluate for a particular letter grade.

=IF(A1>89, "A", IF(A1>79, "B", IF(A1>69, "C", IF(A1>59, "D", "F"))))

Note that all we do is "nest" another test and statement in until the end - when all tests have been exhausted, we just add an option (the "F") for when all other tests have not netted a result [2].

Tips & Tricks

Nested IF statements

Be sure to close the parentheses for all of the test statements in a nested IF statement [3].

References

  1. M. A. Poatsy, K. Mulberry, C. Krebs, L. Hogan, A. Rutledge, and E. Cameron, Exploring Microsoft Office 2013, 1st ed., vol. 1. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2013.
  2. M. A. Poatsy, K. Mulberry, C. Krebs, L. Hogan, A. Rutledge, and E. Cameron, Exploring Microsoft Office 2013, 1st ed., vol. 2. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2013.
  3. “Use nested functions in a formula,” Microsoft Office Support. Available: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Use-nested-functions-in-a-formula-9d7c966d-6030-4cd6-a052-478d7d844166?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US. Accessed: Apr. 29, 2016.