I certainly cannot explain all the features you might use in Excel on this page. I don't know that many myself. Excel has over 450 functions, that is, pre-established computing routines to calculate something such as a mean or a cosine. I am trying to learn more of them. However, there some ideas that can help you extract some of the tools build into the program to get your assignments done.

Each time you open Excel, you are actually opening a more or less unlimited pile of sheets on top of each other. Each sheet is an entire spreadsheet or 'worksheet' in Excel lingo. There are tabs at the bottom of the sheets that allow you to move back and forth between the sheets in the stack.

The most important thing to know about any spreadsheet is that each little block on the sheet is a powerful calculator in itself. You either type letters or numbers into any block or cell or you instruct a cell to make use of other cells. The simplest and most common need is for a sum. There are many ways to get a sum. One of the best ways is to put the numbers to be summed in a column, one under the other. Then, at the base of the column, click on a cell where you want the sum to appear and type an = sign. For most spreadsheets today, the = sign is the signal to the software that you are going to give a formula that it should follow, using other cells in which you have placed some data.

(Note: in all that follows, I use quote marks to mean exactly what to type. DO NOT type the quote marks, only what is between them.)

To make a sum, type "=sum(" Then, click on the cell at the top of the stack of data cells while HOLDING the mouse button down. Without letting go, slide the selection down to the bottom of the stack of data cells. Doing that will cause what is referred to as the range to appear after the parenthesis. The range will be something like "B3:B8", meaning all the cells from B3 down to and including B8. Type a closing parenthesis to finish the sum formula and hit the Enter key to make the formula enter into the cell. Once you have a cell that will register the sum of the cells listed, you could go back and change the entry in any of the data cells and the sum instantly corrects itself.
 

Typing "=average(" and following the above procedure will result in the average (arithmetic mean) appearing in the cell where you type instead of the sum.

Typing "=sqrt(" and clicking on a cell and typing a closing parenthesis and hitting Enter will give you the square root of a number in some other cell. In most spreadsheets, the asterisk * is the multiplication sign. To get the product of a number in cell a1 and a number in cell b1, I could click on the cell where I want the product and type "= and click on cell a1. Then, type "*" and click on cell b1. Hit Enter.

To get the square of a number, type "=" and click on the cell to be squared. Then, type "^2" and hit enter. The ^ sign means exponent in Excel. So, to square a number ^2 means raise it to the second power, mulitply it by itself.

The - means subtract and the / means divide. If I type" =12/3" and hit Enter, the answer "4" appears in the cell but the formula "=12/3" appears in the edit bar at the top of the spreadsheet.

Your use of the Excel formulas will benefit plenty by learning to Fill Down (on the Edit menu). This enables you to insert the formula for the first Zx score and then Fill Down (copy it down) into the other cells that also need to calculate a Z score. But the formula =(B5-B17)/B18 will become =(B6-B18)/B19 when you fill it down. That is, it adjusts itself by one in all parts of the formula. To keep the mean cell and the standard deviation cell constant, insert a dollar sign in front of the cell letter and cell number so that it reads: =(B5-$B$17)/$B$18

Highlighting any cell designation in a formula and hitting the F4 function key will insert both needed dollar signs at once.

Experimenting, reading Help files that come with Excel and asking relatives and friends who use Excel can all increase your ability to make it do what you want.

Many high schools, colleges and technical colleges offer inexpensive Excel courses that may be very worth your time and effort.