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:
6 Responses to “Make VBA String Comparisons Case In-sensitive [Quick Tip]”
Another way to test if Target.Value equal a string constant without regard to letter casing is to use the StrCmp function...
If StrComp("yes", Target.Value, vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
' Do something
End If
That's a cool way to compare. i just converted my values to strings and used the above code to compare. worked nicely
Thanks!
In case that option just needs to be used for a single comparison, you could use
If InStr(1, "yes", Target.Value, vbTextCompare) Then
'do something
End If
as well.
Nice tip, thanks! I never even thought to think there might be an easier way.
Regarding Chronology of VB in general, the Option Compare pragma appears at the very beginning of VB, way before classes and objects arrive (with VB6 - around 2000).
Today StrComp() and InStr() function offers a more local way to compare, fully object, thus more consistent with object programming (even if VB is still interpreted).
My only question here is : "what if you want to binary compare locally with re-entering functions or concurrency (with events) ?". This will lead to a real nightmare and probably a big nasty mess to debug.
By the way, congrats for you Millions/month visits 🙂
This is nice article.
I used these examples to help my understanding. Even Instr is similar to Find but it can be case sensitive and also case insensitive.
Hope the examples below help.
Public Sub CaseSensitive2()
If InStr(1, "Look in this string", "look", vbBinaryCompare) = 0 Then
MsgBox "woops, no match"
Else
MsgBox "at least one match"
End If
End Sub
Public Sub CaseSensitive()
If InStr("Look in this string", "look") = 0 Then
MsgBox "woops, no match"
Else
MsgBox "at least one match"
End If
End Sub
Public Sub NotCaseSensitive()
'doing alot of case insensitive searching and whatnot, you can put Option Compare Text
If InStr(1, "Look in this string", "look", vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
MsgBox "woops, no match"
Else
MsgBox "at least one match"
End If
End Sub