How to Create a Bell Curve In Microsoft Excel

hi there Jamie, here today at Teachers  Tech hope you're having a great day   today I want to show you how to use  Microsoft Excel to create a bell curve if you'd like to follow along with today's  lesson I'll put a link to this spreadsheet   Down Below in the description so you can click  on it and download it open it up and follow   along and practice with me let's get started on  how to create this bell curve in Microsoft Excel

you can see in today's example we're going to be  creating a bell curve in Microsoft Excel based on   student Mark so these are just random numbers I  put in and these are just some names to connect   with them what I'd like to do before we get with  putting in using our functions for mean standard   deviation and normal distribution I like to  sort my data here from smallest to largest so   what I'm going to do is just select what I need  to be sorted go up to sort right here and then   sort smallest to largest and when you're when this  prompts you hit make sure you expand the selection   because I want the names to be connected also so  I hit sort and that's the first step right here   for me I could have done this at a later Point as  well but I just like to sort it to begin with so   we have this sorted smallest to largest my next  one thing is going to be to find the mean now

we have a function for mean and that's going to be  our average with any of these functions that we're   going to be using we need to start with the equal  sign I'm going to start typing in average and see   it comes up right here so I'm going to select this  what do I need to select well my   range here of all my different marks and I'm just  going to hit enter at this point I don't want   to have all these decimal places so I'm just going  to make it a whole number here round it up here we   can see to 66. so that's the first step is finding  out the mean for this this data set the   next thing is going to be standard deviation and  we have a function for that as well so I'm going

to start with my equals and if I just put in St  you can see D we have two different ones we could   possibly use I'm going to be using the stdev. p  because I know my data set is complete this is all   the marks that I have if you if it wasn't complete  if it was just a sample you would use the next   one down here at the dot s so I'm using dot p and  again just like average all I have to do is Select   what I want to apply the standard deviation to hit  enter and again I'm going to just round this up so   it should turn to 21 just like that so I have my  mean my standard deviation this allows me to use   the function for normal distribution now so if  I go to this cell right here and if I just put

again put my equals in and I start typing normal  this is going to be it right here so this Norm dot   dist I'm going to select this one now I'm going  to walk you through all the different arguments   in this using this function so when it says X on  the first one what you need to do is select the   first Mark over here so it's going to be this  right here we need to put a comma after and it   says select the mean well we select we already we  did the mean it's right here so that's D2 and I'm   going to put a comma and what's going to be the  next thing standard deviation so I still have one   last thing to do we have an option here  of true or false so it's going to be false for us   probability Mass function you can see there's  cumulative just produced distribution function   but we're going to be picking this one right here  so I'm selecting that one and my bracket hit enter   and I get my first one right through here so I  do need to copy this down and I want to point   out we need to I could have done this before we do  need to use F4 or we put the dollar signs around   a couple different things because if I copy this  down I need these ones locked in place so I could   double click on this or go up into the formula bar  up here and what I'm going to do is go just click   in D2 here and I'm going to use F4 so function F4  uh on this one so I just hit the wrong key here   let me just click on here again and function F4  and I put the dollar signs around those ones and   I need to under standard deviation as well so I'm  going to use my function F4 and just like that so   and just hit enter nothing really changed here  of the number but what it's going to do now if I   just I'm going to just double click on this little  square in the corner or I could drag down but I'll   just double click it fills this all the way down  and notice if we look at our just distribution   already we have our first number and last number  uh being very similar so it looks like it will be   a nice bell curve this is the point that we're  at where we can actually add our bell curve in   a chart to Microsoft Excel so Microsoft Excel  makes it really easy now to create a bell curve

using a scattered chart and how we do this is the  first thing I'm going to do right now is actually   select what I want to chart or graph so this is  going to be the information right through here   I'm going to go up to insert and it's going to  be scattered to other scatter chart that we're   using and it's this one right here I'm going to  show you a couple different ways you can get to   it so you can see that there's scatter charts  here if I go to recommended right here this is   going to be the one we're going to be using this  scatter but if I go to all charts if we take a   look we have the XY scatter right through here  and I can pick probably smooth lines is what I'd   want so I'm selecting this and it gives me kind  of an example of what it would be so I'm going   to go ahead and hit OK on this and I get my chart  at this point we can go through and we can format   our chart so if you wanted it looking a little  different we can apply different designs that   are already created so in the intro I had this  one so I can select very quickly to make those   changes I can start changing customizing this  chart so if I was just going to call this bell   curve just like this whereas an example I can  go through and change colors and everything but   I have a whole different video about using charts  in Microsoft Excel and I'll put a link to that in   below and up in the card above but you can see the  bell curve in this case looks nicely distributed   from uh from the class I do want to point out  though it's not a perfect bell curve and that's   because that the data sets of the students marks  it's not normally distributed so the mean medium   mode of the data set aren't the same on this and  you can see also if I go ahead and make a change   to one of these marks so if I was going to change  it to 17 you can start to see how the distribution   isn't quite the same on this on but I'm just going  to go back now this format as I said before you   can go through and apply this to other information  you just need to have your data set to work from   and remember when you're doing the standard  deviation whether it be from the complete set   or just a sample on this so I hope you like this  how to create a bell curve in Microsoft Excel let   me know if this has worked for you if you want  to learn more about graphing or Excel thanks   for watching this time on teachers Tech I'll see  you next week with more Tech tips and tutorials