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How to calculate average rate of change in Excel?

Author Kelly Last modified

If you know the average speed when you ride a bike, you can calculate how much time you will spend approximately from a place to other by bike. For example you have recorded the time and distance during one bicycle travel as following screen shot shown, you can calculate the average bicycle speed (the average rate of change) in Excel easily.

Calculate average rate of change in Excel
a screenshot of a table records the time and distance during one bicycle travel

Calculate average rate of change in Excel

To calculate the average rate of change (the average bicycle speed) in Excel, you can easily do as follows:

1. Select the blank cell besides the cell with last distance, in our case select Cell C7, enter the formula =(B7-B2)/((A7-A2)*24) into it and then press the Enter key.
a screenshot of using formula to calculate the average rate of change

2. Right click the cell you entered the formula just now, and select the Format Cells from the right-clicking menu.
a screenshot of opening the Format Cells dialog box

3. Now in the Format Cells dialog box, go to the Number tab, and:
(1) Click the Number in the Category box;
(2) In the Decimal places box, enter the number of decimal places you want to format for the average speed.
(3) Click the OK button.
a screenshot of specifying the formatting of the formula cell
Now you have calculate the average bicycle speed (average rate of change) and format it in Excel.
Note: Apart from the Format Cells command in the right-clicking menu, you can also format the average bicycle speed with selecting it and clicking the Increase Decimal button a screenshot of the Increase Decimal icon or Decrease Decimal button a screenshot of the Decrease Decimal icon on the Home tab.
a screenshot showing both the Increase Decimal icon and the Decrease Decimal icon on the ribbon

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