About Excel Lessons
Excel Lessons is a place to practise Excel by doing it. 105 short lessons in 18 modules, each one a real grid. You type a formula in and it is marked straight away.
How a lesson is built
Every lesson has the same shape, and the shape is the point. It tells you the idea first, then shows you a formula and has you type it. Then it asks what a small change would return, and has you write one yourself. After that it adds one thing at a time. You end up building a formula with no example in front of you. The last step is usually the mistake people make with that function. You meet it here rather than in a report at work.
Nothing is asked before you have been shown how. The order of the 18 modules follows what each one needs from the ones before it. Four lessons introduce a function ahead of the lesson devoted to it. They cannot make their point without it. A long IF nest is best answered with a lookup. A lesson on why a lookup fails has to repair one. Each of those four spells the function out in the task.
Each lesson ends with two or three things you can now do that you could not before. They are written before the steps are, and the steps have to earn them.
How a lesson is checked
- The answer key is computed, not typed. Every expected value comes from the same formula engine that marks your answer. So a lesson cannot carry a number the engine would disagree with.
- A second engine checks the first. Every formula in every shipped lesson is also run by an independent spreadsheet engine in the test suite. The two have to agree, or the disagreement has to be explained in writing. Where Excel and that engine differ, the lesson follows Excel.
- The build refuses a broken lesson. Before the site is built, a checker plays every step. The solution must pass. The feedback must not give the answer away. A "fix this formula" step must really be broken in the way it says.
- Every kind of step is played by a test. The tests play each one through the real runner, and require exactly one way to answer. A second button that does nothing is a lesson nobody can finish.
Your own answer is checked when you press Enter. That has its own page: how your formula is checked.
Who makes it
Ali
I built Excel Lessons on my own. I wrote every lesson by hand, and I wrote the formula engine that marks what you type. So I know what every step is asking for. When a step marks you wrong and you were right, I am the person who reads that email.
Write to us
Write about a step that marked you wrong when you were right. Or a lesson you want that is not here, or a team you want to train: hello@excel-lessons.com. The contact page says what to include.