Facing an Excel test in your job interview?
For jobs in admin, finance, logistics or marketing, a short Excel test is often part of the process, set by the employer or the recruitment agency. You get a sheet of data and a few tasks: look something up, count what meets a condition, make a pivot table.
With Lurndo you practise exactly that, in a spreadsheet that recalculates as you type. You see straight away what your formula does, and when it's wrong you read why.
Why Lurndo suits you
The classics of an Excel test
VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP, IF, COUNTIF, SUMIF and SUMIFS, absolute references and pivot tables. It's all in the course.
The pitfalls that cost you marks
The forgotten fourth argument of VLOOKUP, a missing
$when you fill down, text that looks like a number. You'll run into them and learn to spot them.Just like the Excel in your test
You choose whether your formulas have a comma or a semicolon between the arguments. So you practise the way you'll see it on the day.
A cheat sheet for the night before
Every function on one page, with an example and the classic pitfall.
Try a typical test question
Which area is the customer for ride R02 in? Look up the customer code from B3 in the table L2:M6 and put the area in G3.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ride | Customer | Zone | Km | Weight | Price | Area | Surcharge | Customer name | Name | Code | Area | From km | Price | |||
| 2 | R01 | K03 | Centre | 2.5 | 3 | Bloom Bakery | K01 | Manchester | 0 | £6.00 | |||||||
| 3 | R02 | K01 | Suburbs | 7.2 | 12 | Book Nook | K02 | Burnage | 3 | £9.00 | |||||||
| 4 | R03 | K05 | Docks | 11.4 | 25 | Cygnet Café | K03 | Manchester | 6 | £12.00 | |||||||
| 5 | R04 | K02 | Centre | 1.8 | 1 | Dot Print | K04 | Didsbury | 10 | £18.00 | |||||||
| 6 | R05 | K03 | Suburbs | 5.5 | 8 | Fork & Spoke | K05 | Withington | |||||||||
| 7 | R06 | K04 | Docks | 9.9 | 18 | ||||||||||||
| 8 | R07 | K01 | Centre | 3 | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 9 | R08 | K02 | Suburbs | 6 | 10 | Zone | Centre | Suburbs | Docks | ||||||||
| 10 | R09 | K05 | Docks | 14 | 30 | Surcharge | £0.00 | £2.00 | £5.00 | ||||||||
| 11 | R10 | K06 | Centre | 4.2 | 2 | ||||||||||||
| 12 | |||||||||||||||||
| 13 | Position | Weight | Centre | Suburbs | Docks | Class | Medium | ||||||||||
| 14 | Light | £0.00 | £1.00 | £3.00 | Zone | Docks | |||||||||||
| 15 | Medium | £2.00 | £3.00 | £5.00 | Result | ||||||||||||
| 16 | Heavy | £4.00 | £6.00 | £8.00 | |||||||||||||
| 17 |
Where's the best place to start?
If you already know the basics, go straight to the topics that come up most in tests. Starting from zero? The first modules take you through it step by step.
- 2Functions and referencesYour second client: the Green Fingers allotments in Harrogate. You learn to calculate with functions like AVERAGE, MAX and ROUND, to count what is there and what is missing, and to lock references with $.
- 4Counting and adding with conditionsYour fourth client: the Second Chance charity shop in Gloucester. You learn to count and add up whatever meets a condition, with COUNTIF, SUMIF and their variants, criteria and wildcards.
- 5LookupsYour fifth client: Flying Velo bike couriers in Manchester. You learn to look up values in a table, with VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, XLOOKUP and the duo INDEX and MATCH.
- 7Analysing dataYour seventh client: The Thirsty Owl, a brewery in Ripon. You learn to sort, filter and format a long list, build pivot tables from it and pick the right chart.
Stuck? Ask Lurnie
Lurnie is your AI coach in every lesson. Ask your question during or after an exercise and get an explanation at your level, straight away.
- During or after any exerciseLurnie knows which lesson and exercise you're on. Ask why something works, what a mistake means or how else you could do it.
- Fresh examples, never the solutionLurnie explains with an example on different data and helps you on with a question to think about. That way you find the solution yourself, and it sticks.
- Your conversations are keptRead back later what Lurnie explained. Your conversations stay with your account, course by course.
Lurnie comes with premium, with 30 questions a day.See premium
Why does my formula go wrong when I drag it down?
Excel moves your references along. If E2 holds =C2*D2, E3 gets =C3*D3. Handy, until one cell has to stay put, like a VAT rate in H1: one row down that becomes H2, which is empty.
So put a $ before whatever mustn't move: $H$1 points to the same cell in every copy. Which cell has to stay put in your formula?
29 of 30 questions left todayLurnie can make mistakes.
Frequently asked questions
What do they ask in an Excel test?
It differs from employer to employer, but the classics are lookups (VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP), conditions (IF), counting and adding up with a condition (COUNTIF, SUMIF), locking references with $, sorting and filtering, and making a pivot table.
How much time do I need?
A lesson takes a few minutes. If you already know the basics, you can practise the main topics in a few evenings.
What if the Excel in my test is set up differently?
Formulas work the same everywhere, only the separator between the arguments can differ. In Lurndo you choose a comma or a semicolon, so you can practise either way.
Is it free?
The first three modules are free, without an account. Conditional counting, lookups and pivot tables are in the premium modules.
Ready for your test?
Start with your first formula, or jump straight to the topic you still want to practise.
Start free with the first lesson