Final answer:
To perform an "Exact Match" VLOOKUP in Excel, use the value FALSE as the fourth argument. If not specified, VLOOKUP defaults to TRUE for an approximate match, however FALSE or 0 must be used for exact matches.
Step-by-step explanation:
To specify an "Exact Match" VLOOKUP in Excel, you should use the value FALSE as the fourth argument in the function. This tells Excel to look for an exact match of the lookup value in the first column of your specified range. If FALSE is provided, VLOOKUP will not accept a close match; it will search for an exact match only, and if it doesn't find one, it will return an error.
Here's an example of a VLOOKUP formula set up for an exact match:
=VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, FALSE)
If you don't specify the fourth argument, Excel will default to TRUE, which indicates an approximate match. For exact matches, it's essential that you use FALSE or alternatively, you can use 0, which is numerically equivalent to FALSE in this context.