Column and bar charts in Google Sheets - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

📊 Formula Result

intermediate

Calculate total sales for chart data

You have monthly sales data in cells A2:A7 and sales amounts in B2:B7. Which formula correctly calculates the total sales to be displayed in a chart summary?

Google Sheets

A2:A7 contains: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun
B2:B7 contains: 100, 150, 120, 130, 160, 140

A =COUNT(B2:B7)

B =SUM(A2:A7)

C =SUM(B2:B7)

D =AVERAGE(A2:A7)

💡 Hint

Sum the sales amounts, not the month names.

The sales amounts are in B2:B7, so summing that range gives the total sales. Summing A2:A7 or averaging it doesn't make sense because those are text labels.

❓ Function Choice

intermediate

Choose the function to count categories

You want to create a bar chart showing how many times each product appears in a list in column A. Which function helps count the number of each product for the chart?

Google Sheets

Column A: Product names like Apple, Banana, Apple, Orange, Banana, Apple

A SUM(A:A)

B COUNTIF(A:A, "Apple")

C AVERAGE(A:A)

D MAX(A:A)

💡 Hint

You want to count how many times a specific product appears.

COUNTIF counts how many cells in a range match a condition. Here, it counts how many times "Apple" appears in column A.

🎯 Scenario

advanced

Fixing a bar chart with wrong data range

You created a bar chart but it shows empty bars. Your data is in A1:B6, with labels in A2:A6 and values in B2:B6. You accidentally selected A1:B6 as the data range. What is the likely cause?

A Including the header row A1:B1 causes the chart to misinterpret labels as data

B Selecting A1:B6 is correct; the problem is chart type

C The values in B2:B6 are text, not numbers

D The data range should include only column A

💡 Hint

Headers should be recognized as labels, not data points.

Including the header row in the data range can cause the chart to treat headers as data, resulting in empty or incorrect bars.

❓ data_analysis

advanced

Interpreting stacked column chart data

A stacked column chart shows sales by region for three products. If the total height of the column for Region A is 300, and the segment for Product 1 is 120, what does the 120 represent?

A Sales amount of Product 1 in Region A

B Total sales of all products in Region A

C Sales amount of Product 1 across all regions

D Average sales of Product 1 in all regions

💡 Hint

Stacked columns show parts of a total.

Each segment in a stacked column represents the value of that part (product) within the total for that category (region).

🧠 Conceptual

expert

Choosing chart type for comparing categories

You want to compare sales numbers of 5 products side by side for 4 different months. Which chart type best shows this comparison clearly?

A Pie chart

B Stacked bar chart

C Line chart

D Clustered column chart

💡 Hint

You want to see each product's sales per month separately.

A clustered column chart shows groups of columns side by side for each category, making it easy to compare multiple products across months.