Sample Excel Exercises

Exercise 1
You have a monthly income of 1100. Your monthly outgoings are Rent,
500, Food, 300, Electricity, 40, Phone, 60, and Cable TV, 30. Make out
a clear worksheet with the Monthly Income, the Monthly Expenses listed and
summed, the remainder (whats left over each month) calculated, and the
amount left over per day (assuming 30 days in a month).
Exercise 2
Create the worksheet below. Type in the labels, the student numbers, the test
results (which are out of 100), and the test weights. The total marks and the
class averages for each test must be calculated. The class average for test 1
is simply the average of the marks obtained in that test. Be careful calculating
the total marks - you must use the test weights. The first test is worth a
quarter of the marks, the second is worth a quarter, while the third is worth a
half. Changing the weights in cells C13 to D13 should change the Total
values.
The black borders around cells can be added using the Borders toolbar
button . Select the cells you want a border around and the
select from the drop-down menu.

Now format the test weights so that they are shown as percentages. Simply
select the cells, choose FORMAT|CELLS, and format them as Percentage.
Select the cells from A4 to E9 and choose DATA|SORT. Select that you wish
to sort according to the Total column and that you want the results sorted in
Descending order. You should end up with

Exercise 3
You are looking to buy a car. You are considering two options: to buy a
second hand car and keep it for 10 years, or to buy a new car and keep it for
3. The details of the costs of each option are given below. The calculated
values are shown in Bold. The depreciation per year is simply the difference
between the purchase price and the resale price divided by the number of
years. The total running costs per year is the sum of the service/repair costs,
the fuel costs, the tax, and the insurance. The total cost per year is the sum of
the depreciation and the running costs.
Note that the underlining can be done with one of the options under the
Borders toolbar button .

A third option is to purchase the new car for 17,000 and run it for 14 years
after which it will be worth 1000. The average service/repairs cost per year
will be about 320. The average fuel cost per mile over the 14 years will be
about 0.18. The tax and insurance will be the same. Calculate the Total cost
per year for Option 3.
Exercise 4
You have a company producing units of Product A. Your fixed costs for a year
are 100,000. The cost of making one unit is 3.40. You can sell a unit for
5.00. Assume you can sell as many units as you produce. If you make
100,000 units per year how much profit will you make? Create a worksheet to
answer this question. Have the total cost and the total sales (and the
difference the profit) included.
NOTE THAT YOU CAN TYPE COMMAS IN NUMBERS TO INDICATE THE
BREAKS AT THOUSANDS AND MILLIONS FOR EXAMPLE, TYPE
1,000,000 IN A CELL AND EXCEL WILL DISPLAY THE COMMAS BUT
WILL IGNORE THEM WHEN DOING CALCULATIONS. THIS MAKES
LARGE NUMBERS EASIER TO READ AND REDUCES THE CHANCES OF
ERRORS BEING MADE.
Use Goal Seek to determine how many units you need to produce in order to
break even (i.e. to have zero profit).
Use Goal Seek to determine what the lowest selling price is for you to break
even if you sell 100,000 units per year.
Exercise 5
A car was accelerated up to 120 kmph and the speed was measured at two
second intervals. The results are
Time (s) Speed (kmph)
0 0
2 35
4 60
6 78
8 95
10 110
12 120

You will use this data to calculate the acceleration of the car and how it
changes over time. Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity (or speed if
youre not considering the direction of the motion). You can estimate it from
the values in the table. The speed changed from 0 kmph to 35 kmph in the
first 2 seconds so we can assume that the acceleration at time 0 s was
approximately (35-0)/2 kmph per second. Use Excel to calculate the
acceleration at the other points in time first enter the values above and then
add a new column for the acceleration. You do not have to calculate the
acceleration at time 12 seconds. Graph the acceleration values against time.
Label the graph correctly.
Exercise 6
Given the speed data from the table in Exercise 5 above, calculate how far the
car has travelled at each point in time.
How will you do this?
If a car is going at 80 kmph for 2 hours, how far has it travelled? 80 kmph * 2
hours = 160 km.
If a car starts off at 40 kmph and ends up at 80kmph after 2 hours, how far
has it travelled in the two hours? The answer is that we dont know. A
reasonable way of estimating the answer, however, is to take the average
speed ( (40 + 80) / 2 = 60 kmph) and multiply it by 2 hours.
In this example you can estimate how far the car has travelled in each two
second interval. Note that there are 3600 seconds in an hour. Add these
values up to find out how far it has travelled at any point in time. The solution
is shown below.
Plot the distance travelled against time.

Exercise 6
Someone offers you the choice of getting ten million Euro or getting one cent
on the first day of January, two cent the next day, four cent the next, and so
on the amount doubling each day until the end of the month. Use a
Worksheet to decide which you should take.
Exercise 7
Plot the function

over the range x between -5 and 5 and y between -5 and 5. The result will be
a surface. The step-size in the x and y directions (the amount x or y change
from one point to the next) should be 0.5. Start with the following:

The x values are across the top and the y values are down the side. Add an
equation in cell B2 to calculate x
2
+y
2
where the x value is in B1 and the y
value is in A2. Put in the equation in such a form so that it can be dragged
down and across to fill all the cells indicated in yellow above. The value in cell
L12, for example, should be 0 since x is zero and y is zero at that point. The
value in V22 should be 50.
Now select cells A1 to V22 and using the Chart Wizard create a surface plot
like that shown below. The values in row 1 will be taken as the x values and
those in column A will be taken as the y values for the graph.

Select the cells again and using Chart Wizard create a filled contour plot
choose the option in the Surface category. The result should be like
that below. The legend (to the right of the graph) indicates what ranges of
values are indicated by each colour. The two contour lines around the yellow
band, for example, represent f(x,y) = 20 and f(x,y) = 30.
It is clear that the contours are circles is that what you expected?
What if you wanted more contours e.g. ones for 0, 5, 10, etc.? What you
need to change is the scale of the z-axis for the plot. There is no z-axis shown
in a contour plot but the values in the z-direction are indicated by the contours.
If you wanted to adjust the x-axis then you would double-click on the x-axis on
the graph and the same for the y-axis. In this case double-click on the
legend. A dialog box will appear. Select the Scale tab. Change the Major Unit
value to 5 and press OK.

Exercise 8
Use Goal seek to find any two roots of the equation

Note that Goal Seek will not find the roots exactly there are limitations due
the accuracy with which a computer can store numbers.
Exercise 9
The temperature in an industrial oven over time can be approximated (using
Eulers Method) using the iterative equation

where W (in C/s) is related to the power of the oven (the rate at which energy
goes into it) and the size of the oven and (in s
1
) is related to the rate at
which heat is lost through the oven walls. T
1
, the initial temperature, is 20C.
The value of t is the time step for example, if t is 1 second then the
value T
2
represents the temperature after 1 second, T
3
is the temperature
after 2 seconds, and so on. Similarly if t is 2 seconds then the value T
2
is the
temperature after 2 seconds, T
3
is the temperature after 4 seconds, and so
on.
Calculate the temperature over the first 100 seconds with t = 1 and plot the
temperature against time. The values of W and are, respectively, 5 C/s and
0.01 s
1
. These should be entered in separate cells so that they can be easily
adjusted.
If you want the temperature after 50 seconds to be 300C, what value should
W have? Calculate and record this value.
The accuracy of the approximation given above and used in the worksheet
depends on the length of the time step (t) used in the calculation. The
smaller the time step the more accurate the result the downside being that
more calculations are required. Change the step size to 0.1 and recalculate
what value of W is required for the temperature after 50 seconds to be 300C.
Note that the value should only differ slightly from that obtained with t = 1.
Exercise 10
Hookes law says that the extension of a spring is proportional to the force
across it (i.e. to the force stretching the string). This can be written as

where k is the spring stiffness. If the force, F, is measured in Newtons (N),
and the extension, E, is measured in metres (m), then k is measured in m/N.
A negative force compresses the spring leading to a negative extension.

We can write that the length of the spring, L (a function of the force), is

where L
0
is the free length of the spring (i.e. the length of the spring when
there is no force across it). Note that this is the equation of a straight line. If L
is plotted against F then to the slope of the line will be equal to k, the spring
stiffness.
If you want to calculate k then you can put weights on the spring and measure
the resulting lengths. Plot each point (length plotted against force) and
measure the slope of the resulting straight line.
What is the minimum number of measurements (points) needed?
The answer is two. If you want to measure the slope of a line then the
minimum number of points is two. In this case you could measure the free
length (i.e. F = 0) and the length with a single weight (e.g. 1 Kg). If the first
length value is 0.5 m and the second is 0.75 m then the results would be as
shown below (note that a 1 kg mass produces a force due to gravity of 19.81
N). The stiffness is (0.75-0.5)/(9.81-0) = 0.025484 m/N.

In practice it is not possible to measure a force or a length completely
accurately. Any point you plot on a graph is not, therefore, certain there is
some uncertainty in its horizontal and vertical position. Instead of exact
points as illustrated below left, each point plotted represents an actual value
that lies somewhere within a rectangle (as illustrated below right note that
the size of the rectangles is exaggerated). For example, a measured length of
0.5 metres may mean a value between 0.49 and 0.51 if you can only measure
with an accuracy of within 0.01 m and similarly with the force.

If the points are measured perfectly accurately then the slope of the line
through the points can also be calculated perfectly accurately (see below left).
If there is uncertainty in the two points then there will be uncertainty in the
calculated slope. In the diagram below right the two measured points
represent actual values that lie somewhere within the two rectangles. Putting
a line through the points will give you a slope value but in reality the slope
may be anywhere between that of the two lines shown.

Is it possible to improve the estimate of the slope if there is uncertainty in your
measurements?
The answer is yes by making more measurements and by finding the slope
of the line that best fits the resulting data.

The following measurements were taken for a spring. Plot them and calculate
the spring stiffness using a best-fit line.
F (N) L (m)
0 0.506
0.981 0.566
1.962 0.55
2.943 0.557
3.924 0.605
4.905 0.625
5.886 0.692
6.867 0.686
7.848 0.692
8.829 0.734
9.81 0.773

Why does this work?
Consider this example. Someone gives you a coin and asks you to find out
the probability of it, when thrown, turning up heads. What would you do? You
would have to throw it many times and count the number of heads and the
number of tails. The answer you give will have some uncertainty in it but this
will decrease with the number of throws. For example, if you throw it 10 times
and it comes up heads 3 times then you might say that it has a 3 in 10 chance
of coming up heads but you know that there is a lot of uncertainty in that if
you repeat it you may get a very different result. If you throw it a million times
and it comes up heads 500,000 times then you can say with far more
certainty that the chance on a head is 1 in 2. Why? because you are
averaging the results of many experiments.

When calculating the spring stiffness each measured value may be above or
below the actual value. If there is an equal chance of any measurement being
above as there is of it being below then you can reduce the uncertainty by
averaging over many points the more points the better.