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Sorted!

It is often easier to make sense of datasets when the rows are ordered in some way, for example, when the values in a column go from smallest to largest (or largest to smallest). You can sort datasets using the SORT() function.

The first argument to SORT() is the range of the dataset, not including the header row. The second argument is the number of the column to sort on, starting with 1 as the left-most column. Thirdly, you set the sort direction: pass TRUE to sort in ascending order (low to high, or A to Z) and FALSE for descending order. If you want to break ties by sorting on further columns, you can pass another column index and another direction for each column that you want to sort with.

For example, to sort the dataset in range $D$2 to $H$100 by decreasing F values then increasing D values, you would write SORT($D$2:$H$100, 3, FALSE, 1, TRUE).

This exercise is part of the course

Intermediate Google Sheets

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Exercise instructions

In cell I2, write a command to sort the butterfly dataset by decreasing number of Skippers.

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