In Excel, which function would you use to calculate the average of values in a range?

The AVERAGE() function in Excel is specifically designed to calculate the mean of a set of values within a specified range. When you use AVERAGE(), Excel sums all the numbers in the selected range and then divides that sum by the quantity of values, providing you with the average.

For example, if you have a range of numbers such as 10, 20, and 30, using AVERAGE() will add these together to get 60 and then divide by 3, resulting in an average of 20. This function is particularly useful in various analytical tasks where finding the central tendency of a dataset is required.

In contrast, other functions like SUM() are used to total all the values in a range, COUNT() is for counting the number of entries in a dataset, and MAX() retrieves the highest value from a range. Each of those functions serves a different purpose and does not calculate the average, which is why AVERAGE() is the correct choice for finding means in a dataset.