Having to specify the column index number in VLOOKUP can lead to several issues ... It then returns the value that is one row up from there. Take Student D's score of 65 in the example below.

Microsoft Excel's VLookup formula permits ... and there are 300 rows of data, you'd enter the range B1:D300, assuming data started on the first row. col_index_num: refers to the column within ...

That trick is Index ... tell VLOOKUP what column from the table that contains the answer, then tell it if you want an exact match. Then, boom, the function finds "Eric" in the 9th row of column ...

Remember: VLOOKUP searches for data vertically, so be sure to enter the column letter followed by the row number. For this example, we want to search through all the data, encompassing all fields ...