Fifteen questions in the shapes Excel tests use. Answer five in a real spreadsheet, then try the answers to ten more and see what each one really gives.
Most Excel screening questions come in a handful of shapes: total a column, count by a condition, look up one value, flag rows with IF. Below, five of them on one week’s timesheet, answered in the spreadsheet and checked as you go. A summary that only works for today’s numbers doesn’t pass: change the input, and your formula has to follow.
After that, ten more questions. Each comes with the answers a test offers, the right one and the tempting wrong ones. Pick one and the sheet runs it, so you see what it really gives and why a scorer marks it the way they do.
This is Witsheet, Witsy’s in-browser spreadsheet. It works like Excel and checks each step as you go.
1. A1 holds 250 and B1 holds 40. Which formula gives their product?
C1 = 10000 Right. The formula reads both cells, so it follows them when they change.
2. What’s the difference between =SUM(A2:A6) and =SUM(A2,A6)?
A7 = 150 A colon means “through”: every cell from A2 to A6.
3. The tax for each item is its price times the rate in F1. Which formula in C2 still works when it’s filled down?
C4 = 75 Right. The $ signs pin F1, so every copy still reads the rate while B2 moves to B3, B4, B5.
References move with each copy unless a $ pins them. Practice it on the formula page.
4. Total the Amount column, but only where Region is North.
D2 = 360 Right: the three North rows, 120 + 200 + 40.
SUMIF and COUNTIF practice drills both functions, and the swap.
5. Look up the rate for ID E-105. What should the last argument be?
F2 = #N/A Right. #N/A tells the truth: E-105 isn’t in the list. FALSE forces an exact match.
VLOOKUP practice builds a lookup step by step, the missing ID included.
6. Count how many scores are 80 or above.
D2 = 4 Right, and the comparison sits inside the quotes. Writing it without them is the usual slip.
7. Flag every order over 500 as “Review” and leave the rest blank.
C3 = Right: O-2 is exactly 500, so it stays blank. Two quote marks with nothing between them leave a cell looking empty, rather than showing 0 or FALSE.
Boundaries like this are where tests catch people: read “over”, “at least” and “up to” twice. IF practice has more.
8. A name arrives as “ ana LOPEZ ”. Which formula cleans it to “Ana Lopez”?
B2 = Ana·Lopez Right. TRIM takes out the extra spaces, then PROPER capitalizes what it hands back: one function inside another.
Real cleaning chains functions. Data cleaning practice works through a whole export.
9. 2,000 order rows. What’s the fastest way to total revenue per region per month?
A pivot table: Region to Rows, Month to Columns, Revenue to Values. It takes seconds, needs no formulas, and updates with new data. Writing a SUMIFS for every region and month technically works, and quietly fails a test that’s checking how fluent you are. Build one in pivot table practice.
10. The list is filtered to North. Which formula totals only the rows on screen?
B7 = 360 Right. SUBTOTAL with 109 adds only the rows on show, and follows the filter when it changes.
They follow the shapes employer tests use: hands-on tasks like the SHL simulation, multiple-choice screens like TestGorilla’s, and the exercises interviewers set over a shared screen. (Indeed, once a common place to meet one of these, has retired its assessments.)
No page can give you a test’s real items, and answer keys that claim to are a risk you don’t need. What carries over is the move behind each question, and moves are learned by doing them.
To keep practicing in your own Excel, download the employee directory: lookups by ID, IF logic on salary bands, sorting and filtering, with a tasks sheet to work through.
150 employees across departments and offices, with start dates and salaries. Practice lookups by ID, IF logic on salary bands, sorting, filtering, and date arithmetic.
150 rows · Employee ID · Full Name · Department · Office · Start Date · Annual Salary
Free · fictional data · opens in Excel and Google Sheets
Witsy’s Excel course teaches a few hundred small skills, called Wits, the way this page teaches Excel: in a real spreadsheet, a step at a time. The placement test finds the ones you already have.
Take a few minute test to see how good you actually are with spreadsheets. Witsy creates a map of the Wits you should learn next.
Take the placement test Or just start learning →