Think You Know Excel? Try These 20 Real-World Excel Questions

If you are preparing for an Excel interview or want to sharpen your skills for MIS and reporting jobs, practice is the key. Instead of just learning formulas, you should practice real-life problems where you need to think logically and decide which function to use.

Here are 20 practice questions with sample datasets. Each question is designed to look like a real scenario you may face at work. Try solving them first, then check the solution by clicking “Show Answer.”

Question 1: A company records the following transactions. You need to calculate the total sales amount.

👉 What formula will you use to get the total sales?

=SUM(B2:B5*C2:C5)

// (Entered as array formula or using SUMPRODUCT: =SUMPRODUCT(B2:B5,C2:C5))

Question 2: Your HR sheet has the following employee names. One cell is blank by mistake. Find how many employees are listed in the table.

=COUNTA(A2:A6)

Question 3: Find the Last Transaction Amount

In your sales data, you want to find the last value in the Amount column without knowing how many rows are there.

=INDEX(B2:B4,COUNTA(B2:B4))

Question 4: Find the Project Status Based on IRR

Company A is reviewing projects. A project is Accepted if IRR ≥ 10%, else Rejected.

=IF(B2>=10%,"Accept","Reject")

Question 5: Find the Price of Tablet

You have a product price list and want to find the price of “Tablet.”

=VLOOKUP("Tablet",A2:B4,2,FALSE)

Question 6: Handle Errors in Lookup

When searching for “Camera” in the above table, avoid showing #N/A and instead return “Not Found.”

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP("Camera",A2:B4,2,FALSE),"Not Found")

Practice More: Top 50 Essential MIS Executive Interview Questions and Sample Answers

Question 7: Replace Text in a String

Your dataset contains old company name “ABC Pvt Ltd” which is now changed to “XYZ Pvt Ltd.”

👉 Write a formula to replace ABC Pvt Ltd → XYZ Pvt Ltd in all records.

=SUBSTITUTE(A2,"ABC","XYZ")

Question 8: You have sales data in different sheets: Jan, Feb, Mar. In cell B1, the month name is typed (e.g., Feb). Write a formula to fetch data dynamically.

=SUM(INDIRECT("'"&B1&"'!B2:B10"))

Read More: INDIRECT Function in Excel

Question 9: Select a Region Dynamically

You want to pick a region based on a choice number: 2

1 = North, 2 = South, 3 = East, 4 = West

(Result: South)

=CHOOSE(2,"North","South","East","West")

Question 10: Find Employee ID by Name

👉 Find the ID of “Priya.”

=XLOOKUP("Priya",B2:B4,A2:A4,"Not Found")

Question 11: Filter Transactions Above 10,000

👉 Show only rows where Amount > 10,000.

Read More: FILTER Function in Excel

=FILTER(A2:B4,B2:B4>10000)

Question 12: Join Names with a Separator

👉 Join first and last name with a space.

=TEXTJOIN(" ",TRUE,A2:B2)

Question 13: Split Full Name into Two Columns

If A2 has Ravi Kumar → split into two columns.

=TEXTSPLIT(A2," ")

Question 14: Extract First 5 Characters of Employee Code

If A2 has EMP2025RAIPUR → get first 5 characters.

=LEFT(A2,5)

Question 15: Extract Last 4 Digits of Account Number

If A2 has 1234567890 → get last 4 digits.

=RIGHT(A2,4)

Question 16: Extract Middle Portion from Text

If A2 has HR-EMP-0456 → extract EMP.

=MID(A2,4,3)

Question 17: Find Position of “@” in Email ID

If A2 has support@company.com, find position of @.

=FIND("@",A2)

Question 18: Find Substring “EMP” in Employee Code

If A2 has HR-EMP-0456, find the position of emp.

=SEARCH("emp",A2)

Question 19: From the below table, calculate sales of the last 2 months dynamically.

=SUM(OFFSET(B2,COUNTA(B2:B4)-2,0,2,1))

Question 20: Count Transactions Greater Than 5,000

=COUNTIF(B2:B4,">5000")

Final Thoughts

These 20 Excel practice questions are not just formulas, they are real MIS problems that interviewers often ask to test your problem-solving skills. By practicing these, you’ll be ready to tackle both reporting and logical challenges confidently.

👉 Next Part: 10 Advanced Excel Questions for MIS Interview