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Two notes concerning the use of Microsoft Excel
as a grade book have appeared recently
(1, 2). Both have addressed ways to drop the lowest two quiz grades
in calculating a mark. There is actually a function
available within Excel that is exceedingly simple to use
and is completely flexible--you can use it to drop as
many marks as you like. It is the function SMALL, which
returns the kth smallest value in a data set, and is
described in the Excel Function Reference. The
following expression provides an example of how one would
use SMALL to drop the two lowest grades from a list of
nine marks:
=SUM(AH2:AP2) { SMALL(AH2:AP2,1) { SMALL(AH2:AP2,2)
I have entered nine marks for a student in cells
AH2 through AP2; the entry above appears in the cell I
use to calculate the sum of the seven highest marks for
this student.
Literature Cited
1. Moseley, C. G. J. Chem.
Educ. 1996, 73, 62.
2. Billo, E.; Joseph, J. J. Chem.
Educ. 1993, 70, 148.
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