Which of the following functions returns the median of a given range in Excel?

The function that returns the median of a given range in Excel is accurately identified as MEDIAN(cell range). The MEDIAN function specifically calculates the middle value of a dataset when the values are arranged in numerical order. This is particularly useful for understanding the central tendency of the data, especially in situations where there may be outliers that could skew the mean.

When you provide a range of numbers to the MEDIAN function, it processes this data to determine the median, which is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of the dataset. If the range contains an even number of values, the MEDIAN function will return the average of the two middle numbers.

In contrast, the MODE function is designed to return the most frequently occurring number in a range, while the AVERAGE function computes the sum of the values in a range divided by the count of those values, thus providing the arithmetic mean. Lastly, the SUM function simply adds all the values in the given range together, which is not relevant for finding the median. Therefore, MEDIAN is the correct choice for finding the median value in a set of numbers.