Excel for Beginners Part 7 Making Decisions with IF

Use IF, AND and OR to classify results and turn business rules into understandable formulas.

What you will learn

• Write a basic IF formula
• Combine conditions with AND and OR
• Test boundary values and keep rules readable

Before you begin

Open Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet application that supports standard Excel formulas. Create a practice copy so mistakes are safe to undo. Complete each action yourself rather than only reading it.

The IF pattern

IF asks a question and returns one result when true and another when false. =IF(B2>=50,"Pass","Review") is a complete example.

Text results need quotation marks. Numbers and cell references normally do not.

Multiple conditions

AND is true only when every condition is true. OR is true when at least one condition is true.

For example, =IF(AND(B2>=50,C2="Paid"),"Complete","Check") requires both a score and payment status.

Test the boundaries

Check values just below, exactly at and just above a threshold. This catches incorrect greater-than signs.

If a formula becomes difficult to explain, place thresholds in labelled cells or use a lookup table rather than deeply nesting many IF functions.

Guided practice

1. Create ten student scores.
2. Return Pass for scores of 50 or more and Review otherwise.
3. Add an Attendance column and require both a passing score and 75 percent attendance.
4. Test 49, 50 and 51 deliberately.

Knowledge check

1. What are the three main arguments of IF?
2. When does AND return true?
3. Why test the exact threshold value?

Completion standard

You are ready for the next part when you can complete the guided practice without copying the instructions word for word and can answer the knowledge-check questions in your own language.