LEFT, RIGHT, MID extraction in Excel - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

📊 Formula Result

intermediate

Extracting first 4 characters with LEFT

Given cell A1 contains the text "Spreadsheet2024", what is the result of the formula =LEFT(A1,4)?

A "Sheet"

B "Spre"

C "2024"

D "read"

💡 Hint

LEFT extracts characters starting from the beginning of the text.

The LEFT function takes the first 4 characters from the left side of the text in A1, which are "S", "p", "r", "e" forming "Spre".

📊 Formula Result

intermediate

Extract last 3 characters with RIGHT

If cell B2 contains "Invoice12345", what does the formula =RIGHT(B2,3) return?

A "345"

B "123"

C "Inv"

D "ice"

💡 Hint

RIGHT extracts characters from the end of the text.

RIGHT(B2,3) takes the last 3 characters from the text "Invoice12345", which are "3", "4", "5" making "345".

📊 Formula Result

advanced

Extract middle characters with MID

Cell C3 contains "CustomerID2024". What is the result of =MID(C3,9,2)?

A "st"

B "er"

C "20"

D "ID"

💡 Hint

MID extracts characters starting at a position you choose.

MID(C3,9,2) starts at the 9th character of "CustomerID2024" which is "I", and extracts 2 characters: "I" and "D".

🎯 Scenario

advanced

Extracting area code from phone number

You have phone numbers in column D in the format [phone]. Which formula extracts the area code (the 3 digits inside the parentheses)?

A =RIGHT(D1,3)

B =LEFT(D1,3)

C =MID(D1,2,3)

D =MID(D1,1,3)

💡 Hint

Area code starts after the first character which is an opening parenthesis.

The area code is inside parentheses, so starting at character 2 and taking 3 characters extracts the digits inside the parentheses.

❓ Function Choice

expert

Choosing the correct formula for variable length extraction

You want to extract the first word from a cell E1 that contains a full name like "John Smith". The first word length varies. Which formula correctly extracts the first word?

A =LEFT(E1,FIND(" ",E1)-1)

B =MID(E1,1,FIND(" ",E1))

C =RIGHT(E1,FIND(" ",E1)-1)

D =MID(E1,FIND(" ",E1)+1,LEN(E1))

💡 Hint

Use FIND to locate the space and LEFT to get characters before it.

FIND(" ",E1) finds the position of the space. LEFT extracts characters from the start up to one less than that position, giving the first word.