Final answer:
Clearing formatting in Excel reverts a cell's display to the default, which means a date would be shown as a serial number. The date itself remains intact, and the cell is not cleared of its content.
Step-by-step explanation:
When clear formatting is applied to a cell displaying today's date in MM-DD-YYYY format, the formatting of the cell is reset to the default formatting, but the content itself, in this case, the date, is not removed. Therefore, the correct answer is:
4) The cell will be cleared and the date will be displayed as a serial number.
When the cell's formatting is cleared, Excel will revert to displaying the date as a serial number, which is how Excel internally represents dates. For instance, the date January 1, 1900, is represented as serial number 1, and each subsequent day is one more than the previous. So, a date such as April 2, 2021, has its own unique serial number. It’s important to note that the date itself remains present in the cell; it's only the visual representation that reverts to the default format of serial numbers. To display the date in MM-DD-YYYY format again, you would simply reapply the desired date format.