A
1 Phrase
2 Darren Dahl is the Dean of the Sauder School of Business.

Which formula below will return a number (i.e., not #VALUE! or #NAME?)

Question

A
1	Phrase
2	Darren Dahl is the Dean of the Sauder School of Business.

Which formula below will return a number (i.e., not #VALUE! or #NAME?)

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Let's break down what each formula does and how Excel evaluates the arguments.
Option 1: =SEARCH(sauder,A2)
- Here, sauder is written without quotes, so Excel treats it as either a named range or a variable name. If there is no defined named range or variable called sauder, this will produce a #NAME? error. If there happens to be a defined name sauder, it would search for that value within A2, which is not the intended search for the literal text 'Sauder'. In short, this option relies on a defined name and will not reliably return a position number for the text in A2.
Option 2: =SEARCH(Sauder,A2)
- Similar to the first, Sauder is not enclosed in quotes. Excel will interpret Sauder as a named range or a variable. If such a name does not exist, you’ll get a #NAME? error. Even if a name exists, the function is not searching for the string 'Sauder' itself unless the named value exactly matches the target inside A2, which is a fragile and unintended usage. Therefore this is also unreliable.
Option 3: =FIND("Sauder",A2)
- FIND searches for the literal text exactly as written — including case. The first argument is the string to find, here the exact word Sauder with uppercase S and lowercase rest, and the second argument is the text in A2 to search (Darren Dahl is the Dean of the Sauder School of Business.). If Sauder appears in A2 (it does, as part of 'Sauder School of Business'), FIND will return the numeric position where the match starts. If the substring is not found, FIND would return #VALUE!. Since the text includes Sauder, this formula will produce a numeric result.
Additional notes: About the behavior of SEARCH vs FIND
- SEARCH(sauder,A2) and SEARCH(Sauder,A2) would work if the first argument were a literal string "sauder" or "Sauder" and the text allowed for a case-insensitive search with proper quoting; however, in these options, missing quotes cause #NAME? errors. If the quotes were present as =SEARCH("Sauder",A2) (note the quotes), then SEARCH would return a number, performing a case-insensitive search. But with the given options, only the quoted FIND version supplies a reliable numeric result for the provided A2 content.
In summary, the first two options are incorrect due to missing quotes and dependence on defined names, while the third option correctly uses a literal string to locate the word in the cell.

COMM_V 205 101 102 103 2025W1 In-class Exercise (ICE) 7

A 1 Phrase 2 Darren Dahl is the Dean of the Sauder School of Business. Which formula below will return a number (i.e., not #VALUE! or #NAME?)

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