Which function counts cells that meet a criterion?

Which function counts cells that meet a criterion?

• A. SUM
• B. Average
• C. COUNTIF
• D. COUNT

Answer: (C)

Counting how many cells meet a specific condition is handled by a function that takes a range and a criterion. COUNTIF does exactly this: it checks each cell in the range and increases the count only when the cell satisfies the given criterion. This makes it ideal for tasks like counting how many scores exceed a threshold or how many entries match a particular word. The other options perform different operations: SUM adds values across a range, AVERAGE computes the mean of the values, and COUNT tallies numeric (or non-empty) cells without applying any condition. So COUNTIF is the right choice for conditional counting.

Counting how many cells meet a specific condition is handled by a function that takes a range and a criterion. COUNTIF does exactly this: it checks each cell in the range and increases the count only when the cell satisfies the given criterion. This makes it ideal for tasks like counting how many scores exceed a threshold or how many entries match a particular word. The other options perform different operations: SUM adds values across a range, AVERAGE computes the mean of the values, and COUNT tallies numeric (or non-empty) cells without applying any condition. So COUNTIF is the right choice for conditional counting.