Which function would you use to calculate the mean of a range of cells?

To calculate the mean of a range of cells, the AVERAGE function is the appropriate choice. The mean, in statistical terms, is defined as the sum of all values divided by the count of values. The AVERAGE function performs this exact operation, taking a specified range of cells as input, adding those values together, and then dividing by the number of entries in that range.

This is crucial for data analysis and reporting, as the mean provides a useful measure of central tendency, offering insights into the data set’s overall behavior. Other functions serve different purposes; for instance, SUM will only total the values without providing the average, MEDIAN identifies the middle value in a sorted list but does not provide the arithmetic mean, and MEAN is not a built-in function in many spreadsheet applications, which may lead to confusion. Therefore, AVERAGE is the most commonly utilized function for calculating the mean.