Today I am asking you a tricky formula question. This is asked by Ionel on the Introduction to VLOOKUP, OFFSET & MATCH Formulas post.
The question is,
I have data in three columns: A,B,C and I want to get the average of the closest two values out of three in each row. Could you help me with a formula for this?
Now, how would you go about it?
What does closest of two mean?
We can assume that close-ness is nothing but distance between 2 numbers on numeric scale. So 3 is closer to 2 and 4 compared to 1 or 5.
Your challenge:
Assuming your data is in A2:C10, what formula will you write in D2:D10 to solve this?
Go ahead and get some coffee and get thinking.
Want to cop-out?
I have posted one solution in the next comment. You can see how I went about solving it.

















3 Responses to “Top 5 Excel Skills you need to be a Successful Data Analyst in 2023 (podcast)”
Thanks Chandoo, some great helpful tips here. I'm quite good at Excel (mainly thanks to you!) but I'm always learning. I love the link you gave above to Dynamic Arrays & Spill Ranges, I understand them a bit more now, and can see some uses for them.
I am glad you enjoyed the show Dermot.
Great to see you back! Enjoyed when you first started the podcast and super excited to start listening to you again!