Percentiles in Excel
 

According to the example in Excel's help tool, the 30th percentile of
(1,2,3,4) is 1.9. Can anyone provide any details on how Excel gets this
result?

My calculations give a different a result for the 30th percentile as follows:
There's a 25% chance that a number selected from (1,2,3,4) is <= 1.
There's a 50% chance a number selected from (1,2,3,4) is <= 2.
Interpolating to get the number with a 30% chance gives me .8(1)+.2(2) = 1.2
for the 30th percentile of (1,2,3,4).

Thanks.

Percentiles in Excel
 

Read the help again and it'll give you the hint. You are dividing the range
into not n intervals, but n-1.

=PERCENTILE(A$2:A$5,1/3) (the 33.33% percentile) is 2
The zeroth percentile is 1.
Interpolate between them gives the 30th percentile as being 1.9

QED
--
David Biddulph

"Jon J" <Jon wrote in message
...
According to the example in Excel's help tool, the 30th percentile of
(1,2,3,4) is 1.9. Can anyone provide any details on how Excel gets this
result?

My calculations give a different a result for the 30th percentile as
follows:
There's a 25% chance that a number selected from (1,2,3,4) is <= 1.
There's a 50% chance a number selected from (1,2,3,4) is <= 2.
Interpolating to get the number with a 30% chance gives me .8(1)+.2(2) =
1.2
for the 30th percentile of (1,2,3,4).

Thanks.

Percentiles in Excel
 

include the 0

=PERCENTILE({0,1,2,3,4},0.3)

"Jon J" wrote:

According to the example in Excel's help tool, the 30th percentile of
(1,2,3,4) is 1.9. Can anyone provide any details on how Excel gets this
result?

My calculations give a different a result for the 30th percentile as follows:
There's a 25% chance that a number selected from (1,2,3,4) is <= 1.
There's a 50% chance a number selected from (1,2,3,4) is <= 2.
Interpolating to get the number with a 30% chance gives me .8(1)+.2(2) = 1.2
for the 30th percentile of (1,2,3,4).

Thanks.

Percentiles in Excel
 

Add the 0 in the array

=PERCENTILE({0,1,2,3,4},0.3)

"Jon J" wrote:

According to the example in Excel's help tool, the 30th percentile of
(1,2,3,4) is 1.9. Can anyone provide any details on how Excel gets this
result?

My calculations give a different a result for the 30th percentile as follows:
There's a 25% chance that a number selected from (1,2,3,4) is <= 1.
There's a 50% chance a number selected from (1,2,3,4) is <= 2.
Interpolating to get the number with a 30% chance gives me .8(1)+.2(2) = 1.2
for the 30th percentile of (1,2,3,4).

Thanks.