COUNT practice
Count measurements before trusting totals or averages.
What this lesson covers
COUNT counts numbers, including numeric formula results. It does not count text labels or blank cells.
3 exercises in this lesson
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Task 1 · cell E10
Count the numeric quantities in C2:C7.
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Task 2 · cell E10
Count numeric cells in A1:E7, including headers and labels.
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Task 3 · cell E10
Count numeric prices in D3:D6.
Using COUNT at work
The syntax is COUNT(value1, …). Once it is in your hands, the work it replaces is the kind of thing that used to mean scrolling a column and hoping you did not miss a row.
This is lesson 7 of 37. It takes a few minutes, and the exercises are marked the moment you submit rather than at the end.
Where people usually slip
- Ranges drift. Pointing at three cells when the data has six is the single most common cause of a wrong total, and it is invisible because the answer still looks plausible.
- Copying breaks a reference. Relative references shift when a formula is copied. If a value should stay put, lock it with dollar signs.
- The number is right, the method is not. Typing a total by hand produces the right answer once. A formula produces it again when the data changes, which is the actual skill.
How this is marked
Each exercise is checked against the result the formula should produce, and then re-run on a different set of numbers. A hardcoded answer passes the first check and fails the second, so it is rejected. That second pass is the part that makes the practice stick.