Return to the OECD Factbook data download sheet to select your data. Use the left hand mouse button on your mouse to select the cells for German GDP from 1980 to 2005. Note how Excel fills in the function and data range for you in the function bar.

Close the bracket in the function bar and press return.

Excel returns you to the Summary Statistics sheet and fills in the average value for your selected data.

Repeat the above process to fill in the mean GDP values for Japan, US and the UK. Make sure your answer match the Answers using functions

We will now find the median values of GDP for each country. The median is the middle value in a set of data, when the data are arranged in ascending order. Excel already has a function to work out the median value of a data series. In the Summary Statistics sheet, type =median( into the Germany median cell, C2.

Again, use the tab to return to the Data Summary Statistics sheet to select your data. Use the left hand mouse button on your mouse to select the cells for German GDP from 1980 to 2005. Once more, Excel fills in the function and data range for you in the function bar. Close the bracket and press return.

Excel returns you to the Summary Statistics sheet with the median value inserted. Repeat the process to generate median values for GDP for the three other countries.

The next column on the datasheet is Count. Count simply tells you the number of data points in each series. You can fill in the Count column by using the process carried out in the previous activities and =Count(). Alternatively, like all the functions in Excel, you can also use the menu.