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Excel MAX Practice Question: January sales are in B2:B7 and February sales in C2:C7. Find the biggest…

By Rinkesh Shah, founder of Cellgrids.

The question

January sales are in B2:B7 and February sales in C2:C7. Find the biggest increase from January to February for any single product. Put it in E2.

The data

	A	B	C	E
1	Product	Jan	Feb	Result
2	Pens	1200	1350	?
3	Books	2400	2150
4	Bags	3100	3480
5	Caps	980	1120
6	Mugs	1750	1690
7	Tote	860	1180

The yellow cell is where your answer goes.

Show answer

Answer in E2: 380

How it works

Explanation: C2:C7-B2:B7 builds a list of 6 differences. MAX picks the biggest. SUMPRODUCT lets the array calculation work in one cell.
Syntax: =SUMPRODUCT(MAX(C2:C7-B2:B7))
The differences are 150, -250, 380, 140, -60 and 320. The biggest is 380.

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MAX syntax

=MAX(number1, [number2], ...)

Returns the largest number in a set. MAX is used in data analysis work to summarize or test patterns across a data set. Full MAX guide.