Basic FunctionsIntermediate

COUNT Functions

Three ways to count, and the difference between them is the whole point.

Task:

The meter-reading round came back with gaps — some flats gave a reading, some were locked, some were never visited. In B8 count how many actual readings you got, in B9 how many flats came back with anything at all, and in B10 how many readings are over 4000.

Hints

+5 XPno-hints bonus

Solve it on your own to keep the bonus. Each hint gets one step closer to the formula.

Variations of COUNT, COUNTA

0/4

The same formula in the other shapes it takes at work.

  1. COUNT Functions

    Three ways to count, and the difference between them is the whole point.

    CoreIntermediate
  2. COUNTBLANK: what is still missing

    Count the gaps rather than the entries.

    Beginner
  3. COUNTIFS: count with two conditions

    How many rows meet this condition and that one.

    Intermediate
  4. COUNTIF with a wildcard

    Count the cells that end with, start with or contain some text.

    Intermediate

The data in this exercise

This is the grid you start with. Cell references in the task — B6, C2 — point at the row numbers and column letters below.

10 rows × 2 columns3 cells you fill in
AB
1FlatReading
21A4021
31BNo access
42A3887
52B
63A4460
73BNo access
8Readings received
9Flats that responded
10Readings over 4000

Functions used here

What this exercise teachesMay contain the answer

COUNT and COUNTA differ by exactly the rows where someone wrote a note instead of a number, and that gap is the useful figure here: five flats responded but only three gave you a reading, so two need revisiting. A single count would have hidden it.