VAR (Estimates variance based on a sample for Statistical Purpose)

What Does It Do?

This function calculates the sample population variance of a list of values.

A sample population is used when the list of values represents a sample of a population.

Syntax

=VAR(Range1,Range2,Range3 through to Range30)

Formatting

No special formatting is needed.

Example:

The table below was used by a company interested in buying a new machine to pack washing powder.

Three machines were short listed and allow to run for a day.

At the end of the day four boxes of soap powder were picked at random from the production of each machine.

The boxes were weighed and the =VAR() function used as these boxes only represented a sample of the complete days production.

The machine with the smallest variance was the most consistent.

Explanation of formula:

This finds the lowest value.                                =MIN(H4:H6)

This finds the position of the lowest value.         =MATCH(MIN(H4:H6),H4:H6,0)

This looks down the Machine column to             =INDEX(C4:C6,MATCH(MIN(H4:H6),H4:H6,0))

find the machine name.