Excel has very powerful formulas and add-ins for performing almost any kind of statistical analysis. Today we will learn how you can make a statistical distribution of test scores using excel.
This is a part of our spreadcheats series of posts where we aim to solve 30 common work related excel problems, one at a time. Read the earlier spreadcheats here.
Just follow the below 2 steps to create statistical distribution / frequency of any set of values using excel. Also, download the statistical distributions example workbook and play with it.
1. Define the bands for distribution
Assuming the test scores range from 0 to 100, you can define score bands like 10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90,100
2. Create a frequency formula and array enter it in to the spreadsheet
This part is even easier.
Assuming the test scores are in the range B6:B105 and bands are in the range c6:c15:
First select the cells D6:D16 (10 cells, 1 each for the frequency between 0-10, 10-20, 20-30, … 90-100) and then enter the FREQUENCY() formula.
What is FREQUENCY() formula?
FREQUENCY is an excel function that takes a range of values and a range of bands and tells you how the values are distributed in the bands. As you can guess, the formula returns an array of frequencies, so it must be entered in a bunch of cells together.
How do you do that? Simple, select a range of cells, enter the formula in the first cell by start typing =frequency… and when you are done, just press ctrl+shift+enter and excel takes care of the rest.
The formula we need to enter in our case is, =FREQUENCY(B6:B105,C6:C15) and when you press ctrl+shift+enter instead of just enter. The frequency values for each band will be entered in the corresponding row.
See the screencast below to understand it better.
That is all. So simple isn’ t it?
Download the statistical distributions example workbook and play with the formulas yourself.
More on statistics and excel:
2 Responses to “Top 10 Power BI Interview Questions & Answers”
Hello...
In Power BI I have data that includes months by name only (e.g. May, April, December...)
I need to build charts etc. but i need the months to go chronologically... not alphabetically... I cannot seem to find the fix to this.... once again, my data does NOT have an actual date attached to it (like 02/01/2023)....only month names... can i use a helper table wher i id the month names as numbers 1 thru 12? and if so, how do i manage this to work for me ?
Thank you.
~Keith
You need to setup an extra table to map each month name to a running number. A simple 12 row table like
Jan 1
Feb 2
Mar 3
..
Dec 12
Then create a relationship between this month table and your month column
Now, go to "table view" in Power BI and set the sort by column to month number for the month name column on this new table.
Finally, use the new table's month name whenever you need to refer to the month name in the visuals.
They will be chronologically arranged.