[Blindmath] Doing calculations with Excel?

[Birkir R. Gunnarsson]

Hi Sarah

Keep in mind that Excel cannot do things such as multiplying to
matrices for instance, so there are some basic things that Excel will
not be too helpful with.
However it does some statistical things very well, regressions,
standard deviations etc. You can produce these by hand, which you
probably will have to do, since using the built-in Excel functions are
probably considered cheating, depends on what the class is.
The thing I like about Excel is that most online hints, manuals and
courses that have demo Excel spreadsheets are accessible, and you can
work your way through Excel workbooks online. It takes time, but I did
this for a few years very uccessfully as a risk analyst.
Google some courses on Excel, Excel for beginners, regression with
Excel, calculating standard deviation etc.
Remember in Jaws ctrl-page up and page down will take you between work
sheets in a work book.
Pivot tables are not very accessible, but I doubt you'll use them.
a formula in Excel always starts with an equals sign.
a semi coln (:) is a range indicator.
If you want to sum all values in cells a1 through a14 you type in the
formula =sum(a1:a14) into any other cell.
If you want to sum only absolute values of a cell, use a $ sign in front.
=sum($a$1:$a$14).
If you do not do this and then you insert a row at the top, the
formula will automatically change to
sum(a2:a15), if you do not use the $ sign to indcate aboslute position.
Open Excel and play around with it, the sooner the better. It's a
matterof comfort level.
You should do fine. R is more powerful and fit for many statistics
problems, but Excel can definitely do a lot of these things for you.


On 1/8/12, Sarah L. Gales <imafarmgirl at verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I am interested in doing calculations with excel for the statistics class I
> will be starting in a week and a half.  I realize it can't do everything,
> but know it can do basic math and keep it organized in a way that my
> Professor will be able to read if necessary.  The other students will be
> using a calculator and writing down their answers.  The professor has
> suggested I use excel.
>
> Does anyone know if there is a guide someplace of how to accomplish this?  I
> will be using excel 2010.  I have done math in excel but it has been about
> ten years.  All I remember is that it had something to do with using
> brackets or parentheses or something like that.  Can anyone help get me
> started?  I don't want to end up failing this class.  Luckily I will have a
> tutor.
>
> Sarah
>
>
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