ASK AMY: Using Excel's Large and Small Functions

Recently I was asked if there was a way to find the second largest number in a range of cells. Off the top of my head I didn’t know the answer; however, after a little research I discovered the LARGE and SMALL functions.

For example, if you want to find the second largest number in a range of cells in column C the formula would look like:

=LARGE(C5:C305, 2)

Where:

• =LARGE  is the name of the function
• (C5:C305, is the range of cells (data set) of the numbers to be examined
• 2) is the k-th largest number within that data set

The SMALL function works the same way.