Percentile Function

[anna]

Can someone explain to me what/how exactly does the
Percentile Function work? Here's my example:

If I have a list of numbers:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
in array i put the cells those numbers are in
in K i put .9 (90%)
it returns a 9.1

What exactly does the 9.1 represent? Please explain.
Thanks!

 

[Keith R]

Ah, you just gave me a lead on my problem, I haven't used the percentile
formula before

to answer your question, it should be 90% of the range of values, which in
your case I believe if you were thinking it would return .9 instead of .91,
it is because your range starts at 1 instead of zero? It looks like it
interpolates the returned value if the percentile you selected does not
correspond exactly with the number of items in your list...

 

[Jim]

PERCENTILE returns the k-th percentile of values in a range (as it states in
the fx dialog box). In your case, 35.3 is 90% (.9) of the highest value in
the sample you provided.

 

[Jim]

This reminds of a use for percentile back in the old days when I was at
college. The students, and probably mostly the ones who didn't want to work
very hard, always wanted the professor to grade "on the curve". To do so,
the standards for the test scores were taken from only within the members
who took the test, instead of a possible score of 100. Thus, if the highest
score attained was 85, a score of 83.52 would be equivelent to a score of 90
in a test where 100 is the top score.

Now that I am safely out of school, I hope that practiced has fallen into
disuse. <g>