Problem:

Checking whether or not each of the cells in List1 (column A) is blank, and Counting the Blank Cells.

Solution:

Use either of the following formulas in column B:
=IF(ISBLANK(A2),\"\",A2)
=IF(A2=\"\",\"\",A2)
Either formula will return the corresponding value from column A only if the cell is not blank.
Use the COUNTBLANK function, as shown in the following formula, to count the number of blank cells in List1:
=COUNTBLANK(A2:A7)