The AVERAGE function is a fundamental statistical function in Microsoft Excel. Its purpose is to calculate the arithmetic mean of a set of numeric values. The function sums the numbers provided as arguments (which can be numbers, cell references, or ranges) and then divides by the count of those numbers. It is important to note that the function ignores text, logical values, and empty cells, but it does include cells containing the value zero in its calculation.

A. This describes the functionality of the MATCH function, which is used to find the relative position of an item in a range.

C. This describes the purpose of lookup functions like VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP, which search for a value and retrieve a corresponding value from another column.

1. Microsoft Corporation. (n.d.). AVERAGE function. Microsoft Support. Retrieved from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/average-function-047bac88-d466-426c-a32b-8f33eb960cf6

Reference Detail: In the "Description" section

the document states

"Returns the average (arithmetic mean) of the arguments."

2. University of California

Berkeley Library. (n.d.). Commonly Used Excel Formulas. UC Berkeley Library Data Lab. Retrieved from https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/excel/formulas

Reference Detail: In the "Commonly Used Formulas" table

the AVERAGE function is defined as: "Finds the average of the numbers in a range of cells. =AVERAGE(A2:A10)".