Which of the following Excel formulas performs a calculation only when cell A1…

Concept

Excel's CELL function returns information about a cell depending on its first argument, the info_type. With the info_type "type", CELL reports the kind of data in the cell as a single-letter code: "v" for a value (a non-text, non-blank entry such as a number), "l" for a label (text), and "b" for a blank cell. Wrapping this code in IF lets the formula return its result only for the chosen data type.

Applying it here

• The goal is to produce a result only when A1 holds a value-type (non-text) entry, and to return 0 otherwise.

• The test CELL("type",A1)="v" is TRUE exactly when A1 contains a value, so IF returns its TRUE branch (A12); for text or a blank cell the type code is "l" or "b", the test is FALSE, and IF returns 0.

• =IF(CELL("type",A1)="v",A12,0) therefore yields its result only for a value-type entry and returns 0 in every other case — exactly the required behaviour.

Why the other info_type codes fail

• CELL("contents",A1) returns the actual contents (value or text) of A1, not a type code, so it does not test the data type at all.

• CELL("format",A1) returns a number-format code (such as "G" or "C2") describing how the cell is displayed, not the value-type flag.

• CELL("address",A1) returns the reference as text, e.g. "$A$1", which describes location, not data type.

• CELL("col",A1) returns the column number (here 1), again unrelated to data type, so the comparison never yields the value flag.