Excel PracticeIFS practice
Nested IFs become unreadable after the second level. IFS reads top to bottom, which is how the rule is written in English.
What this lesson covers
IFS stops at the first test that is true, so order the conditions from most specific to least.
3 exercises in this lesson
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Task 1 · cell E10
Label C2 "big" if it is at least 10, otherwise "small".
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Task 2 · cell E10
Label C3 "big" if it is at least 10, otherwise "small".
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Task 3 · cell E10
Label E2 "high" above 200, "medium" above 100, otherwise "low".
Using IFS at work
The syntax is IFS(test1, value1, test2, value2, …). 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 30 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.