Cracking The SQL Interview For: Data Scientists

Cracking the SQL
Interview for
DATA
SCIENTISTS
Nervous about your SQL Interview?

Anxiety ends here.
90 SQL CODING QUESTIONS & SOLUTIONS
LEON WEI
"SQLPad Helped me gain mastery of all the
core SQL concepts in a structured manner with
a thoughtfully designed business schema"
- Nisheeth, Data Scientist
1
INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................3
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...............................................................................................4

SELECTED CUSTOMER REVIEWS ...............................................................................5
WHAT A SQL INTERVIEW MAY LOOK LIKE AT A TOP TECH COMPANY .....................7
WINDOW FUNCTIONS ..........................................................................................12
QUESTIONS ..................................................................................................28
SINGLE TABLE OPERATIONS ..................................................................................28

MULTI-TABLE OPERATIONS .....................................................................................53
WINDOW FUNCTIONS ..........................................................................................73
SOLUTIONS.................................................................................................100
SINGLE TABLE OPERATIONS ................................................................................100

MULTI-TABLE OPERATIONS ....................................................................................115
WINDOW FUNCTIONS ........................................................................................124
RECAP .........................................................................................................142
CONGRATULATIONS! ..........................................................................................142
INTRODUCTION
Hi, thanks for purchasing this SQL ebook!
SQL is a must-know programming language for any data analytics professionals
However, many college graduates or young professionals start their job searches without solid SQL
coding skills, - which ultimately costs them their dream jobs
This ebook includes 90 SQL interview questions and solutions, which will help data candidates
learn or refresh their SQL coding skills and get ready for a SQL interview.
This book is also accompanied by the Cracking the SQL Interview for Data Scientists Course
(sold separately), which includes 21 video lectures with tips and techniques to ace a SQL
interview
If there are any questions, feedback, please feel free to send me an email at [email protected]
Leon Wei,
March 2021
3
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leon Ice Climbing at Matanuska

Glacier, Alaska 2019
Leon Wei is the founder of sqlpad.io and instamentor.com, two interview preparation sites for data
professionals.
Most recently, he was a senior manager of machine learning at Apple, where he lead a team of
data scientists and engineers building large-scale machine learning systems for Apple's billion
dollars businesses.
Before that, he ran the machine learning and data science team at Chegg, a leading education
technology company. He also worked as a research scientist at Amazon developing its real-time
pricing engine using machine learning.
He has interviewed thousands of candidates as a hiring manager or part of a hiring committee.
If you need any help with your job search or career, you can hire him as your coach/mentor
on instamentor.com
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SELECTED CUSTOMER REVIEWS
“Worked through all the problems at sqlpad.io - Great teaching / refresher tool and highly
recommended!”
— Mike Metzger
“I have been relearning SQL and sqlpad.io has been a great resource. There is a good ratio
of a new concept to practice questions! Highly recommended.”
— Anup Kalburgi
“I signed up on SQLPad and was pleasantly surprised when Leon helped me out personally
on the website. In two mock interviews with him from instamentor.com, he was meticulously
prepared and very professional.”
— Rahul Nayak
“SQLPad is the best website I have used for practicing SQL.The databases and practice
problems resemble real-world data and daily tasks in a data scientist / data analyst role.”
— William
“SQLPad helped me gain mastery of all the core SQL concepts in a structured manner with
a thoughtfully designed business schema. ”
— Nisheeth
“This course helped me get into a nal round of a data scientist interview at Facebook. ”
— Justin
“I feel so con dent with SQL after practicing here. ”
— Juhi
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“I am currently in question 30, I really like some of the questions you posted here. Also thank
you for your excellent customer service !!!! ”
— Mamath
“Enjoying it so far, love the mix with practical exercises and the focus to land a job, that's
really important because normal courses do not prepare you for interviews. Also, Leon is
really kind and helpful.”
— Jose
“This site is a great resource for SQL interview practice questions. The interface is excellent!
And even as someone who currently uses SQL for their day job, I have de nitely improved
my skills by working through these problems.”
— Kyle
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W H AT A S Q L I N T E R V I E W M AY L O O K L I K E AT A T O P
TEC H C OMPANY
Summar
Let me walk you through a typical SQL interview at one of the top tech rms, so you can get a
sense of how a SQL interview is conducted and what the main criteria are to determine your
performance. I will also share a few tips and techniques to give you an edge for your next
interview.
Introductio
SQL and its related database management system, such as Hive, BigQuery, Spark SQL, are the
#1 toolset in managing and processing data in the industry. If you are interviewing for a data-related
job, you need to prove your SQL pro ciency
Here is a list of typical roles that will require at least one round of SQL interviews
1. Data analys
2. Data scientis
3. Data enginee
4. Business intelligence enginee
5. Product analys
6. Decision scientis
7. Research scientis
8. Software engineer (especially those on the backend side
Why is SQL interview important for a candidate
SQL Interview can sometimes bear other names such as Technical Data Interview or Data
Processing Interview. The primary purpose is to make sure a candidate is hands-on with data and
can contribute immediately after joining the company
You will be asked to perform a series of SQL coding exercises to extract facts or insights from the
given data and answer follow-up questions based on different scenarios
I have been using SQL for 10+ years, and it is still my #1 choice in preparing data
However, I have interviewed so many candidates who started their job searches without a solid
coding skill in SQL. In the end, the SQL skills gap cost their dream jobs
How is a SQL interview conducted
Before COVID-19, a typical interview process included 2 or 3 rounds of phone screens and a nal
round of onsite interviews
Nowadays, most of the interviews are online, often assisted by video conferencing tools such as
Zoom, Webex, or Google Hangout
In the old days, during a nal interview. a candidate would be asked to write their SQL code on a
whiteboard without any help from a modern IDE for syntax highlighting or auto-completion
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Nowadays, the whiteboard has been replaced by interactive online coding tools such
as coderpad or google docs.
Tips: Before your interview, make sure you familiarize yourself with those online coding
environments. If you don't know what tool they use, ask your recruiter.
Right before the interview, you will receive a link that points to an online coding environment, where
you will code up solutions in SQL.
An interviewer will be able to see everything you type in real-time.
A typical SQL interview process
Let's assume you are interviewing for a data scientist role at a major music streaming company
(e.g., Spotify).
You are given 3 (simplified) tables:
TABLE 1: song
-- id: BIGINT
-- name: VARCHAR(255)
-- artist_id: BIGINT
The first table is a list of songs and their metadata, song names, and associated artists.
TABLE 2: artist
-- id: BIGINT
-- name: VARCHAR(255)
The second table is simply an artist table with only 2 columns: artist id and the artist name.
TABLE 3: daily_plays
-- date: DATE
-- country: VARCHAR(2) ('uk','us','in','jp','cn')
-- song_id BIGINT
-- plays BIGINT
The third table is a daily aggregate table that counts the number of times a song is played
in different countries.
And you are asked the following questions:
Question 1:
Write a query to return the top 5 songs in the UK yesterday.
Tips: a common mistake a beginner usually makes is diving into coding right away without fully
understanding the question.
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An interviewer often start with a vague question to see if a candidate is good at communicating
It is crucial to clarify the following key points before diving into coding.
1. What does it mean 'top'? What is top's de nition? Do you mean number of plays, number of
unique customers, or perhaps other metrics
2. What columns should I return, a song id, or include a song's name
3. What if there are ties? Should I return only 1 row or all of them? (optionally
4. Should we care about the timezone
After clarifying this question, you can go ahead and start coding, and here is a sample solution
SELECT
S.song_id,
S.name
FROM daily_plays P
INNER JOIN song S
ON P.song_id = S.id
WHERE P.country = 'UK'
AND P.date = CURRENT_DATE - 1
ORDER BY daily_plays DESC
LIMIT 5;
Question 2:
Write a query to return the top 5 artists in the US and UK yesterday
This question tries to evaluate whether a candidate knows window functions
Window functions are asked a lot, especially if the hiring company has a global business.
To identify top artists/songs/albums across different countries, you need to know how to
use ROW_NUMBER and RANK. We will dive into Window functions in our next section. 
Again, before start coding, try to clarify a few things with the interviewer
1. The de nition of 'top.'
2. Columns to return
3. Situations when there are ties
4. This is probably subtle, but because multiple artists can perform a song, you need to talk to the
interviewer how to 'count' the plays properly. For simplicity, let's assume a song only has one artist
And here is a sample solution

WITH artist_ranking AS (
SELECT
A.artist_id,
MAX(A.artist_name) AS artist_name,
MAX(P.country) AS country
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ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY country ORDER BY SUM(plays) DESC) AS

ranking
FROM daily_plays P
INNER JOIN song S
ON P.song_id = S.id
INNER JOIN artist A ON
A.artist_id = S.artist_id
WHERE P.country IN ('UK', 'US')
AND P.date = CURRENT_DATE - 1
GROUP BY A.artist_id
)
SELECT artist_id, artist_name, country, ranking
FROM artist_ranking
WHERE ranking <= 5
LIMIT 5;
At this step, if you completed the above 2 questions, the interview would have a good sense that
you are very good with SQL coding. He would likely pause SQL coding and transition to follow-up
analytics questions
Sample analytics question #1: Taylor Swift is a popular artist, but her songs' plays dropped
yesterday. How would you analyze this, what data would you use, and what would be your
process
For this kind of question (data change: drop/increase), I have created a framework that you can
borrow
1. Clarify the question
1. What do you mean dropped, comparing today’s data with yesterday's or same day last week
2. Did it drop a lot? If it only dropped a little, maybe we don't have to worry about it
3. And you were told by the interviewer, it's comparing yesterday to the day before, and yes, it
indeed dropped a lot signi cantly
2. Rule out technical issues rst
In my 15 years of career, the #1 cause of poor data quality often comes from a technical issue, e.g.,
power outage, a bug in our logging code, someone checked in a code without testing, forgot to pay
a license fee, and the third-party software stopped working.
3. Whether the drop is a big deal
Even it is a signi cant drop. We still don’t know whether we should treat it as a big problem, e.g., it
could be because of seasonality, the day before yesterday was New Years' Day, so of course the
number will drop, and all other artists' songs are also dropped signi cantly as well
And you were told by the interviewer, yes, it is a big problem, and it is not due to seasonality, and it
only happened to Taylor
4. Dive into dat
After ruling out those potential issues, now it's time to dive into data
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4.1 Start with internal data (data that you already have full access to)
We can slice Taylor's song plays by different countries, genres, devices, iOS vs. Android, Web vs.
Mobile, etc. And it could be because of a particular country, we just lost a popular song's license in
that country to a competitor, for example
4.2 external data (might take extra time/resource to obtain
Finally, you can also mention external data impact, e.g., a competitor such as Amazon Music just
had a new product launch. They are giving out free listening to all Taylor's songs. Therefore, we lost
a bunch of users
Maybe it is because this artist dropped out of a top chart on Billboard or it could also because the
artist lost a lot of followers after posting something controversial on social media.
A few follow-up questions for your reference

This round of interviews is nished at this step, and the next interviewer is waiting to join the
conversation, good job
Here are a few more questions that could be asked during interview, in case you want to continue
practicing
1. Write a query to nd the top trending artist

2. How would you design a system to identify trending artists
3. We want to expand our music streaming services to a few more countries. Can you help nd
which new countries we should add our services to? What data will you use, and why
4. How would you design a HOT 100 artist chart
First, clarify the interviewer's requirements and the goals, why do we need to build this,
what problems are we trying to solve, who are our customers we are serving, why are you not
happy with the existing solution
Always start small, de ne a handful of critical product features rst, and only launch it in one or two
countries to test it out. And don't forget to mention you will always keep iterating and ne-tuning the
algorithms/product features to expand its scope and bring it to more markets/countries
Tips: Many tech companies really care about how quickly they can launch the rst version for
system design questions. Bias towards action, and as Reid Hoffman famously put it: if you are not
embarrassed about your rst product, you launched too late
Conclusio
I have shown you what a typical SQL interview (sometimes called technical data interview or data
processing interview) process may look like. I also gave you some tips and techniques and
a framework to answer that standard interview questions
I hope you learned something today. If you have any questions or want some help with your job
search, please feel free to reach out to me at instamentor.
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WINDOW FUNCTIONS
Introductio
WINDOW functions are a family of SQL functions that are frequently asked during a data scientist
job interview
However, writing a bug-free WINDOW function-based SQL query could be quite challenging for any
job candidates, especially those who just get started with SQL
In this article, I will share some typical WINDOW functions speci c interview questions, their
patterns, and step-by-step solutions
Outline
I am going to break down this article into 4 sections
1. In the rst section, I will go through a few WINDOW functions based on regular aggregate
functions, such as AVG, MIN/MAX, COUNT, SUM.
2. In section 2, I will focus on rank-related functions, such as ROW_NUMBER, RANK,
and RANK_DENSE. Those functions are handy when generating ranking indexes, and you
need to be uent in those functions before entering a data scientist SQL interview
3. In the third section, I will talk about generating statistics (e.g., percentiles, quartiles, median,
etc .) with the NTILE function, a common task for a data scientist
4. In the last section, let’s focus on LAG and LEAD, two functions that are super important if you
are interviewing for a role that requires dealing with time-series data
Section 1. WINDOW functions based on regular aggregate functions: AVG, MIN/MAX,

SUM, COUN
Window functions are functions that perform calculations across a set of rows related to the current
row
It is comparable to the type of calculation done with an aggregate function, but unlike regular
aggregate functions, window functions do not group several rows into a single output row — the
rows retain their own identities
Behind the scenes, the window functions process more than just the query results' current row
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All examples in this article are based on movie DVD rental business data. In this first example,
our goal is to compare each movie DVDs replacement cost to the average cost of movies sharing
the same MPAA ratings.
SELECT
title,
rating,
replacement_cost,
AVG(replacement_cost) OVER(PARTITION BY rating) AS avg_cost
FROM film;
For those of you not based in the United States, an MPAA rating is a film rating system that
decides a film’s suitability for specific audiences, based on a film’s content. For example, G means
it’s appropriate for all ages, while PG-13 contains materials that could be inappropriate for children
under 13.
There is no GROUP BY clause for the AVG function, but how does the SQL engine know which
rows to use to compute the average? The answer is the PARTITION BY clause inside
the OVER() utility, and we are calculating the average based on a unique value of rating.
In the final output, every row has the average cost from the same rating. You can perform other
analyses such as dividing a movie’s cost to avg_cost and find out its expense relative to similar
movies.
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https://sqlpad.io/playground/
All tables in this article are available on SQLPad’s online SQL playground. If you want to follow
along and submit queries against those tables, please feel free to go to sqlpad.io/playground and
have some fun.
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Let’s take a look at another example. In this example, I want to compare every movie’s length (in
minutes) to the maximum length of movies from the same category.
SELECT
title,
name,
length,
MAX(length) OVER(PARTITION BY name) AS max_length
FROM (
SELECT F.title, C.name, F.length
FROM film F
INNER JOIN film_category FC
ON FC.film_id = F.film_id
INNER JOIN category C
ON C.category_id = FC.category_id
) X;
It’s very similar to the first example. Still, I combined a MAX function with OVER and PARTITION
BY to create a window function, which returned the maximum movie length inside the same movie
category.
For the first film: story side, its length is 163 minutes, and the maximum length of an action film
(same category) is 185. If I compare every action movie’s length to 185, I can get a sense of how
long this specific movie is, relative to its category, as films from different genres tend to have
different durations.
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SELECT
film_id,
title,
length,
SUM(length) OVER(ORDER BY film_id) AS running_total,
SUM(length) OVER() AS overall,
SUM(length) OVER(ORDER BY film_id) * 100.0 /SUM(length) OVER() AS

running_percentage
FROM film
ORDER BY film_id;
Let’s take a look at a more complicated example, where we calculated a running sum with a
window function.
Assuming it’s the holiday season, I want to binge-watch all 1000 movies, starting from movie id=1.
After finishing each film, I want to know what my overall progress is. I can use SUM and OVER to
calculate a running total of time to get my progress.
Notice that there is no PARTITION BY clause because I am not grouping those movies into any
sub-categories. I want to compute my overall progress but not based on any subgroups or
categories.
Another thing to notice is that if I don’t add anything inside the OVER() function, I get the total
number of minutes from the entire movie catalog. As you can see from the second last column:
they all have the same value of 115267, but after I add the ORDER BY clause, I get the running
total of the minutes up to that specific row (running_total column).
Again, please feel free to go to sqlpad’s playground and play with this film table until you become
comfortable with the syntax
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.
If you are interested in practicing a few more WINDOW functions that we just covered, here are 4
exercises for you to reinforce your learning.
Time to complete: ~ 30 -45 mins.
• #58: Percentage of revenue per movie

• #59: Relative percentage of a movie’s revenue per category
• #60: Compare each film rentals with the average rental per category
• #61: Customer spend vs. average customer spend in the same store
Section 2: ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK

Let’s go through some of the essential WINDOW functions: ROW_NUMBER and RANK.
SELECT
F.film_id,
F.title,
F.length,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY length DESC) AS row_num
FROM film F
ORDER BY row_number;
In this example, our goal is to create a ranking index based on the movie's length for the entire
movie catalog.
As you can see, the ROW_NUMBER function generates a sequence of integers, starting from 1,

for each row.
But movies with the same lengths were given a DIFFERENT row number, as the database
randomly assigned a unique number when there was a tie.
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SELECT
F.film_id,
F.title,
F.length,
C.name AS category,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY C.name ORDER BY F.length DESC) row_num
FROM film F
ORDER BY C.name, row_number;
Let’s take a look at another example. Instead of comparing a movie’s length to all other films from
the entire catalog, we can rank them within each movie category using PARTITION BY.
ROW_NUMBER with OVER and PARTITION BY is a regular pattern that is frequently used in

advanced SQL. Mastering this pattern will make your life much easier.
For example, imagine you are working at an e-commerce company, and it has a global business.
Your boss asks you to send her a list of best sellers for each country. You can
use ROW_NUMBER and PARTITION BY to generate this list quickly.
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SELECT
F.film_id,
F.title,
F.length,
RANK() OVER(ORDER BY length DESC) AS ranking
FROM film F
ORDER BY ranking;
Let’s take a look at the RANK function, which is very similar to ROW_NUMBER. The difference
between RANK and ROW_NUMBER is that RANK assigns the same unique values if there is a
tie and restarts the next value with the total number of rows up to that row. Notice how it jumps from
1 to 11.
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SELECT
F.film_id,
F.title,
F.length,
C.name AS category,
RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY C.name ORDER BY F.length DESC) ranking
FROM film F
ORDER BY C.name, ranking;
Similarly, we can also generate rankings within a subgroup with the help of PARTITION BY.
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SELECT
F.film_id,
F.title,
F.length,
DENSE_RANK() OVER(ORDER BY length DESC) AS ranking
FROM film F
ORDER BY ranking;
The last function I want to show you is DENSE_RANK. It is very similar to RANK but differs in how
it handles ties. It restarts with the following immediate consecutive value rather than creating a
gap.
As you can see here, for the first 2 rows, two movies both have a value of 1. Instead of restarting
from 3, the next dense_rank value starts as 2.
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SELECT
F.film_id,
F.title,
F.length,
C.name AS category,
DENSE_RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY C.name ORDER BY F.length DESC) ranking
FROM film F
ORDER BY C.name, ranking;
Similarly, if we combine PARTITION BY with DENSE_RANK, we can get consecutive rankings

inside a category. The most significant value for a dense_rank is the total number of unique values
inside of a partition.
In summary, ROW_NUMBER, RANK, and DENSE_RANK are 3 functions that are very helpful to

generate rankings. I have used ROW_NUMBER quite often at work as a data scientist, and I have
also used RANK occasionally when dealing with ties (rare).
Time for some exercises. I have prepared 3 exercises to help with your understanding.
Time to complete: ~30 -45 mins.
• #62: Shortest film by category

• #63: Top 5 customers by store
• #64: Top 2 films by category
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Section 3: NTILE
In this section, I am going to show you how to create statistics using NTILE.
NTILE is a handy function, especially for data analytics professionals. For example, as a data
scientist, you probably need to create robust statistics such as quartile, quintile, median, etc., in
your daily job, and NTILE makes it very easy to generate those numbers.
NTILE takes an argument of the number of buckets and then creates this number of buckets as
equally as possible, based on how the rows are partitioned and ordered inside the OVER function.
SELECT
film_id,
title,
length,
NTILE(100) OVER(ORDER BY length DESC) AS percentile
FROM film
ORDER BY percentile;
Let’s take a look at example 1, where we created 100 buckets, and we ordered all of the movies by
their length descendingly. Therefore, the longest ones are assigned to bucket #1, and the shortest
ones #100.
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For the second example, we created a few more statistics, such as DECILES (10 buckets)
and QUARTILES (4 buckets). We also partitioned them by MPAA ratings, so the statistics are
relative to each unique MPAA rating.
NTILE is a very straightforward window function that can be very useful for your daily job as a data
scientist. Let’s do some exercises to help you remember its syntax and reinforce your learning in
this lecture.
Some exercises for fun.
Time to complete: ~30 -45 mins.
• #65: Movie percentiles by revenue

• #66: Movie percentiles by revenue by category
• #67: Quartile buckets by number of rentals
Section 4: LAG, Lead

In the last section, I will walk you through two WINDOW functions: LAG and LEAD, which are
extremely useful for dealing with time-related data.
LAG and LEAD's main difference is that LAG gets data from previous rows, while LEAD is the
opposite, which fetches data from the following rows.
We can use either one of the two functions to compare month-over-month growth. As a data
analytics professional, you are very likely to work on time-related data. If you can
use LAG or LEAD efficiently, you will be a very productive data scientist.
Their syntax is very similar to other window functions. Instead of focusing on the format of the
syntax, let me show you a couple of examples.
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WITH daily_revenue AS (
SELECT
DATE(payment_ts) date,
SUM(amount) revenue
FROM payment
WHERE DATE(payment_ts) >= '2020–05–24'
AND DATE(payment_ts) <= '2020–05–31'
GROUP BY DATE(payment_ts)
SELECT
date,
revenue,
LAG(revenue, 1) OVER (ORDER BY date) prev_day_sales,
revenue *1.0/LAG(revenue,1) OVER (ORDER BY date) AS dod
FROM daily_revenue
ORDER BY date;
1. In the first step, we created daily movie rental revenue with CTE (common table expression).
2. And in the second step, we appended the previous day’s revenue to the current day’s using the
LAG function.
3. Notice that last 2 columns of the first row are empty. It’s simply because May 24th is the first
available day.
4. We also specified the offset, which is 1, so we fetch the next row. If you change this number to
2, then you compare the current day’s revenue to the day before the previous day.
5. Finally, we divided the current day’s revenue by the previous day’s to create our daily revenue
growth.
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WITH daily_revenue AS (
SELECT
SUM(amount) revenue
FROM payment
WHERE DATE(payment_ts) >= '2020–05–24'
AND DATE(payment_ts) <= '2020–05–31'
GROUP BY DATE(payment_ts)
SELECT
date,
revenue,
LAG(revenue, 2) OVER (ORDER BY date) prev_day_sales,
revenue *1.0/LAG(revenue,2) OVER (ORDER BY date) AS dod
FROM daily_revenue
ORDER BY date;
Let’s take a look at another example. It’s very similar to the previous one, but instead of appending
the previous day’s revenue, we used the LEAD function with an offset of 1 to get the next day’s
movie rental revenue.
We then divided the next day’s revenue by the current day’s revenue to get the day-over-day
growth.
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For this lecture, you can try the following 2 exercises to help you get familiar with the syntax.
Time to complete: ~45 mins — 1 hour.
• #68: Spend difference of first and second rentals

• #69: Number of happy customers
Summary
Great job. If you have followed through all the examples, you have seen most of the
common WINDOW functions/patterns.
WINDOW functions are a family of SQL utilities that are often asked during a data scientist job
interview.
Writing a bug-free WINDOW function query could be quite challenging. It takes time and practice to
become a master, and you are getting there soon, once you finish this book. 🏆
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QUESTIONS
SINGLE TABLE OPERATIONS
Question 1. Top store for movie sales easy

Instructio
Write a query to return the name of the store and its manager, that generated the most sales.
Table: sales_by_store
Movie sales by store
col_name | col_type
-------------+----------
store | text
manager | text
total_sales | numeric
Sample results
store | manager
-----------+--------------
Woodridge | Jon Stephens
Question 2. Top 3 movie categories by sales easy

Instructio
• Write a query to nd the top 3 lm categories that generated the most sales.
• The order of your results doesn't matter.
Table: sales_by_ lm_category
Total sales by movie categories.
col_name | col_type
-------------+----------
category | text
total_sales | numeric
Sample results
category
-----------
Category 1
Category 2
Category 3
Question 3. Top 5 shortest movies easy

Instructio
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• Write a query to return the titles of the 5 shortest movies by duration.

Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
release_year | integer
language_id | smallint
original_language_id | smallint
rental_duration | smallint
rental_rate | numeric
length | smallint
replacement_cost | numeric
rating | text
Sample results
title
---------------------
MOVIE 1
MOVIE 2
MOVIE 3
MOVIE 4
MOVIE 5
Question 4. Staff without a pro le image easy

Instructio
• Write a SQL query to return this staff's rst name and last name.
• Picture eld contains the link that points to a staff's pro le image.
• There is only one staff who doesn't have a pro le picture.
• Use colname IS NULL to identify data that are missing.
Table: staff
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
staff_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
address_id | smallint
email | text
store_id | smallint
active | boolean
username | text
picture | character varying
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Sample results
first_name | last_name
------------+-----------
Jon | Snow
Question 5. Monthly revenue easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the total movie rental revenue for each month.
• You can use EXTRACT(MONTH FROM colname) and EXTRACT(YEAR FROM colname) to
extract month and year from a timestamp column.
Table: payment
Movie rental payment transactions table
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
payment_id | integer
customer_id | smallint
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
payment_ts | timestamp with time zone
Sample results
year | mon | rev
------+-----+----------
2020 | 1 | 123.45
2020 | 2 | 234.56
2020 | 3 | 345.67
Question 6. Daily revenue in June, 2020 easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return daily revenue in June, 2020.
• Use DATE(colname) to extract the date from a timestamp column.
• payment_ts's data type is timestamp, convert it to date before grouping.
• No dates need to be included if there was no revenue on that day.
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
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amount | numeric
Sample results
dt | sum
------------+---------
2020-06-14 | 57.84
2020-06-15 | 1376.52
Question 7. Unique customers count by month easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the total number of unique customers for each month
• Use EXTRACT(YEAR from ts_field) and EXTRACT(MONTH from ts_field) to get
year and month from a timestamp column.
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
rental_ts | timestamp with time zone
inventory_id | integer
return_ts | timestamp with time zone
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
year | mon | uu_cnt
------+-----+--------
2020 | 1 | 123
2020 | 2 | 456
2020 | 3 | 789
Question 8. Average customer spend by month medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the average customer spend by month.
• De nition: average customer spend: total customer spend divided by the unique
number of customers for that month.
Table: payment
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col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Sample results
year mon avg_spend
2020 2 3.2543037974683544
2020 5 9.1301559454191033
Question 9. Number of high spend customers by month medium

Instructio
• Write a query to count the number of customers who spend more than (>) $20 by
month
• Hint: a customer's spend varies every month.
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Sample results
year mon num_hp_customers
2020 2 158
2020 5 520
Question 10. Min and max spend medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the minimum and maximum customer total spend in June 2020.
• For each customer, rst calculate their total spend in June 2020.
• Then use MIN, and MAX function to return the min and max customer spend .
Table: payment
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col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Sample results
min_spend | max_spend
-----------+-----------
0.99 | 52.90
Question 11. Actors' last name easy

Instructio
Find the number of actors whose last name is one of the following: 'DAVIS', 'BRODY',
'ALLEN', 'BERRY'
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Sample results
last_name | count
-----------+-------
ALLEN | 3
DAVIS | 3
Question 12. Actors' last name ending in 'EN' or 'RY' easy

Instructio
• Identify all actors whose last name ends in 'EN' or 'RY'.
• Group and count them by their last name.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
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first_name | text
last_name | text
Sample results
last_name | count
-----------+-------
ALLEN | 3
BERGEN | 1
Question 13. Actors' rst name medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of actors whose rst name starts with 'A', 'B', 'C', or
others.
• You need to return 2 columns:
• The rst column is the group of actors based on the rst letter of their first_name, use
the following: 'a_actors', 'b_actors', 'c_actors', 'other_actors' to
represent their groups.
• Second column is the number of actors whose rst name matches the pattern.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Sample results
actor_category | count
----------------+-------
a_actors | 13
b_actors | 8
Question 14. Good days and bad days dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of good days and bad days in May 2020 based on
number of daily rentals.
• Return the results in one row with 2 columns from left to right: good_days, bad_days.
• good day: > 100 rentals.
• bad day: <= 100 rentals.
• Hint (For users already know OUTER JOIN), you can use dates table
• Hint: be super careful about datetime columns.
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• Hint: this problem could be tricky, feel free to explore the rental table and take a look
at some data.
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
good_days | bad_days
-----------+----------
7 | 24
Question 15. Fast movie watchers vs slow watchers dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of fast movie watchers vs slow movie watchers.
• fast movie watcher: by average return their rentals within 5 days.
• slow movie watcher: takes an average of >5 days to return their rentals.
• Most customers have multiple rentals over time, you need to rst compute the number
of days for each rental transaction, then compute the average on the rounded up days.
e.g., if the rental period is 1 day and 10 hours, count it as 2 days.
• Skip the rentals that have not been returned yet, e.g., rental_ts IS NULL.
• The orders of your results doesn't matter.
• A customer can only rent one movie per transaction.
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
watcher_category | count
------------------+-------
fast_watcher | 112
slow_watcher | 487
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Question 16. Staff who live in Woodridge easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the names of the staff who live in the city of 'Woodridge'
Table: staff_list
col_name | col_type
----------+----------
id | integer
name | text
address | text
zip code | text
phone | text
city | text
country | text
sid | smallint
Sample results
name
--------------
Jon Stephens
Question 17. GROUCHO WILLIAMS’ actor_id easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return GROUCHO WILLIAMS' actor_id.
• Actor's rst_name and last_name are all stored as UPPER case in our database, and
the database is case sensitive.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Sample results
actor_id
----------
1
Question 18. Top lm category easy
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Instructio
• Write a query to return the lm category id with the most lms, as well as the number
lms in that category.
Table: lm_category
A lm can only belong to one category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
category_id | smallint
Sample results
category_id | film_cnt
------------+----------
1 | 2
Question 19. Most productive actor medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the rst name and the last name of the actor who appeared in
the most lms.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Table: lm_actor
Films and their casts
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | smallint
film_id | smallint
Sample results
------------+-----------
MICHAEL | JACKSON
Question 20. Customer who spent the most medium

Instructio
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• Write a query to return the rst and last name of the customer who spent the most on
movie rentals in Feb 2020.
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
customer_id | integer
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
activebool | boolean
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
-----------+-----------
JAMES | BOND
Question 21. Customer who rented the most medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the rst and last name of the customer who made the most
rental transactions in May 2020.
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
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Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
------------+-----------
JENNIFER | ANISTON
Question 22. Average cost per rental transaction easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the average cost on movie rentals in May 2020 per transaction.
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Sample results
avg
--------------------
1.234567
Question 23. Average spend per customer in Feb 2020 easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the average movie rental spend per customer in Feb 2020.
Table: payment
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col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Sample results
avg
--------------------
1.23456789
Question 24. Films with more than 10 actors medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the titles of the lms with >= 10 actors.
Table: lm_actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | smallint
film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Sample results
title
------------------------
ACADEMY DINOSAUR
ARABIA DOGMA
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Question 25. Shortest lm easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the title of the lm with the minimum duration.
• A movie's duration can be found using the length column.
• If there are ties, e.g., two movies have the same length, return either one of them.
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Sample results
title
--------------
SHORT FILM
Question 26. Second shortest lm medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the title of the second shortest lm based on its duration/length.
• If there are ties, return just one of them.
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
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length | smallint
rating | text
Sample results
title
--------------
SECOND SHORTEST
Question 27. Film with the largest cast easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the title of the lm with the largest cast (most actors).
Table: lm_actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | smallint
film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Sample results
title
------------------
LARGEST MOVIE
Question 28. Film with the second largest cast medium

Instructio
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Write a query to return the title of the lm with the second largest cast.
•
If there are ties, e.g., two movies have the same number of actors, return either one of
•
the movie.
Table: lm_actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | smallint
film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Sample results
title
-----------
SECOND LARGEST
Question 29. Second highest spend customer medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the name of the customer who spent the second highest for
movie rentals in May 2020.
• If there are ties, return any one of them.
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
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Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
------------+-----------
MARK | ZUCKERBERG
Question 30. Inactive customers in May easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the total number of customers who didn't rent any movies in May
2020.
Hin
• You can use NOT IN to exclude customers who have rented movies in May 2020.
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
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email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
count
-------
1234
Question 31. Movies that have not been returned easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the titles of the lms that have not been returned by our
customers.
Hin
• If a movie is not returned, the return_ts will be NULL in the rental table.
Table: inventory
Each row is unique; Inventoy_id is the primary key of the table
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
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staff_id | smallint
Sample results
title
-------------------------
AGENT TRUMAN
ALABAMA DEVIL
AMERICAN CIRCUS
ANGELS LIFE
Question 32. Unpopular movies dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of lms with no rentals in Feb 2020.
• Count the entire movie catalog from the film table.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
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rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
count
-------
123
Question 33. Returning customers medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of customers who rented at least one movie in both
May 2020 and June 2020.
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
count
-------
123
Question 34. Stocked up movies easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the titles of movies with more than >7 dvd copies in the
inventory.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
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Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Sample results
title
------------------------
ACADEMY DINOSAUR
APACHE DIVINE
Question 35. Film length report easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of lms in the following categories: short, medium,
and long.
De nitio
• short: less <60 minutes.
• medium: >=60 minutes, but <100 minutes.
• long: >=100 minutes
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
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Sample results
film_category | count
---------------+-------
medium | 1
long | 2
short | 3
Question 81. How many people searched on new year's day easy

Write a query to return the total number of users who have searched on new year's day:
2021-01-01.
Table: search
col_name| col_type
----------+------------
country | varchar(2)
date | date
user_id | integer
search_id | integer
query | text
Sample results
num_searches
--------------------
1234567899
Question 82. The top search query on new year's day easy

Write a query to return the top search term on new year's day: 2021-01-01
Table: search
col_name| col_type
----------+------------
date | date
user_id | integer
search_id | integer
query | text
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top_search_term
--------------------
Joe Biden
Question 84. Click through rate on new year's day easy
• Write a query to compute the click through rate for the search results on new year's
day (2021-01-01).
• Click through rate: number of searches end up with at least one click.
• Convert your result into a percentage (* 100.0).
Table: search_result
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
date | date
search_id | bigint
result_id | bigint
result_type | varchar(20)
action | varchar(20)
Sample results
ctr
----------
2.34
Question 85. Top 5 queries based on click through rate on new year's day dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the top 5 search terms with the highest click through rate on
new year's day (2021-01-01)
• The search term has to be searched by more than 2 (>2) distinct users.
Table: search
col_name| col_type
----------+------------
date | date
user_id | integer
search_id | integer
query | text
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Table: search_result
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
date | date
search_id | bigint
result_id | bigint
result_type | varchar(20)
action | varchar(20)
Sample results
query
------------
covid
exit
biden
Question 86. Top song in the US easy

Write a query to return the name of the top song in the US yesterday.
Table: song
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
song_id | bigint
title | varchar(1000)
artist_id | bigint
Table: song_plays
Number of times a song is played (streamed), aggregated on daily basis.
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
date | date
song_id | bigint
num_plays | bigint
Sample results
title
------------
Eminence Front
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Question 89. Top 5 artists in the US medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the top 5 artists id for US yesterday.
• Return a unique row for each country
• For simplicity, let's assume there is no tie.
Table: artist
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
artist_id | bigint
name | VARCHAR(255)
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Question 36. Actors from lm 'AFRICAN EGG' easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the rst name and last name of all actors in the lm 'AFRICAN
EGG'.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Table: lm_actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | smallint
film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Sample results
------------+-----------
GARY | PHOENIX
DUSTIN | TAUTOU
Question 37. Most popular movie category easy
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Instructio
• Return the name of the category that has the most lms.
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
Table: category
Movie categories.
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
category_id | integer
name | text
Sample results
name
--------
Category Name
Question 38. Most popular movie category (name and id) medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the name of the most popular lm category and its category id
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
Table: category
Movie categories.
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
name | text
Sample results
category_id | name
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123 | Category
Question 39. Most productive actor with inner join easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the name of the actor who appears in the most lms.
• You have to use INNER JOIN in your query.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Table: lm_actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | smallint
film_id | smallint
Sample results
actor_id | first_name | last_name
----------+------------+-----------
1234 | FIRST_NAME | LAST_NAME
Question 40. Top 5 most rented movie in June 2020 medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the film_id and title of the top 5 movies that were rented the
most times in June 2020
• Use the rental_ts column from the rental for the transaction time.
• If there are ties, return any 5 of them.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
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Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
film_id | title
---------+--------------------
12345 | MOVIE TITLE 1
Question 41. Productive actors vs less-productive actors medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of productive and less-productive actors.
De nitio
• productive: appeared in >= 30 lms.
• less-productive: appeared in <30 lms.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
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actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Table: lm_actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | smallint
film_id | smallint
Sample results
actor_category | count
-----------------+-------
less productive | 123
productive | 456
Question 42. Films that are in stock vs not in stock medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of lms that we have inventory vs no inventory.
• A lm can have multiple inventory ids
• Each lm dvd copy has a unique inventory ids
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
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Sample results
in_stock | count
--------------+-------
in stock | 123
not in stock | 456
Question 43. Customers who rented vs. those who did not medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of customers who rented at least one movie vs.
those who didn't in May 2020.
• Use customer table as the base table for all customers (assuming all customers have
signed up before May 2020)
• Rented: if a customer rented at least one movie.
• Bonus: Develop a LEFT JOIN as well as a RIGHT JOIN solution
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
hass_rented | count
-----------+-------
rented | 123
never-rented | 456
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Question 44. In-demand vs not-in-demand movies medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of in demand and not in demand movies in May
2020.
• Assumptions (great to clarify in your interview): all lms are available for rent before
May.
• But if a lm is not in stock, it is not in demand.
De nitio
• in-demand: rented >1 times in May 2020.
• not-in-demand: rented <= 1 time in May 2020.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
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Sample results
demand_category | count
-----------------+-------
in-demand | 123
not-in-demand | 456
Question 45. Movie inventory optimization dif cult
Instructio
• For movies that are not in demand (rentals = 0 in May 2020), we want to remove them
from our inventory.
• Write a query to return the number of unique inventory_id from those movies with 0
demand.
• Hint: a movie can have multiple inventory_id.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
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staff_id | smallint
Sample results
count
-------
12345
Question 46. Actors and customers whose last name starts with 'A' easy
Instructio
• Write a query to return unique names ( rst_name, last_name) of
our customers and actors whose last name starts with letter 'A'.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
------------+-----------
KENT | ARSENAULT
JOSE | ANDREW
Question 47. Actors and customers whose rst names end in 'D'. easy

Instructio
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• Write a query to return all actors and customers whose rst names ends in 'D'.
• Return their ids (for actor: use actor_id,
customer: customer_id), first_name and last_name.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
customer_id | first_name | last_name
-------------+------------+--------------
55 | DORIS | REED
65 | ROSE | HOWARD
Question 48. Movie and TV actors easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return actors who appeared in both tv and movies
• You need to use INNER JOIN.
Table: actor_movie
Actors who appeared in a movie.
col_name | col_type
------------+-------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | character varying
last_name | character varying
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Table: actor_tv
Actors who appeared in a TV show.
col_name | col_type
------------+-------------------
actor_id | integer
Sample results
actor_id | first_name | last_name
----------+-------------+-------------
1 | PENELOPE | GUINESS
4 | JENNIFER | DAVIS
Question 49. Top 3 money making movie categories medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the name of the 3 movie categories that generated the most
rental revenue
• And rental revenue from each of the category.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
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film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Table: category
Movie categories.
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
name | text
Sample results
name | revenue
-------------+---------
Sports | 123
Sci-Fi | 456
Animation | 789
Question 50. Top 5 cities for movie rentals easy

Instructio
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• Write a query to return the names of the top 5 cities with the most rental revenues in
2020.
• Include each city's revenue in the second column.
• Yours results should have exactly 5 rows.
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: address
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
address_id | integer
address | text
address2 | text
district | text
city_id | smallint
postal_code | text
phone | text
Table: city
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
city_id | integer
city | text
country_id | smallint
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
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create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
city | sum
----------------------------+--------
Cape Coral | 221.55
Saint-Denis | 216.54
Aurora | 198.50
City 4 | 12.34
City 5 | 1.23
Question 51. Movie only actor easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the rst name and last name of actors who only appeared in
movies.
• Actor appeared in tv should not be included .
Table: actor_movie
col_name | col_type
------------+-------------------
actor_id | integer
Table: actor_tv
col_name | col_type
------------+-------------------
actor_id | integer
Sample results
-------------+-------------
ED | CHASE
ZERO | CAGE
CUBA | OLIVIER
Question 52. Movies cast by movie only actors dif cult
Instructio
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• Write a query to return the film_id with movie only casts (actors who never appeared
in tv).
• You should exclude movies with one or more tv actors
Table: lm_actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | smallint
film_id | smallint
Table: actor_tv
col_name | col_type
------------+-------------------
actor_id | integer
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Sample results
film_id
---------
174
201
Question 53. Movie groups by rental income dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of lms in 3 separate groups: high, medium, low.
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De nitio
• high: revenue >= $100.
• medium: revenue >= $20, <$100 .
• low: revenue <$20.
Hin
• If a movie has no rental revenue, it belongs to the low group
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
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staff_id | smallint
Sample results
film_group | count
------------+-------
medium | 123
high | 456
low | 789
Question 54. Customer groups by movie rental spend medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of customers in 3 separate groups: high, medium,
low.
De nitio
• high: movie rental spend >= $150.
• medium: movie rental spend >= $100, <$150.
• low: movie rental spend <$100.
Hin
• If a customer spend 0 in movie rentals, he/she belongs to the low group.
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
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Sample results
customer_group | count
---------------+-------
high | 123
medium | 456
low | 789
Question 55. Busy days and slow days medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of busy days and slow days in May 2020 based on
the number of movie rentals.
De nitio
• busy: rentals >= 100.
• slow: rentals < 100.
Table: dates
Dates from 01/01/2019 to 12/31/2021.
col_name | col_type
----------+----------
year | smallint
month | smallint
date | date
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
date_category | count
---------------+-------
busy | 10
slow | 21
Question 56. Total number of actors easy

Instructio
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Write a query to return the total number of actors from actor_tv, actor_movie with FULL
•
OUTER JOIN.
• Use COALESCE to return the rst non-null value from a list.
• Actors who appear in both tv and movie share the same value of actor_id in both
actor_tv and actor_movie tables.
Table: actor_movie
col_name | col_type
------------+-------------------
actor_id | integer
Table: actor_tv
col_name | col_type
------------+-------------------
actor_id | integer
Sample results
count
-------
123
Question 57. Total number of actors (with UNION) easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the total number of actors using UNION.
• Actor who appeared in both tv and movie has the same value of actor_id in both
Table: actor_movie
col_name | col_type
------------+-------------------
actor_id | integer
Table: actor_tv
col_name | col_type
------------+-------------------
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actor_id | integer
Sample results
count
-------
123
Question 87. Top song in the US and UK medium

Write a query to return the name of the top song in the US and UK yesterday, respectively.
Table: song
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
song_id | bigint
title | varchar(1000)
artist_id | bigint
Table: song_plays
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
date | date
song_id | bigint
num_plays | bigint
Sample results
country | song_name
--------------+-----------------
US | Superhero
UK | Eminence Front
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Question 58. Percentage of revenue per movie medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the percentage of revenue for each of the following
lms: film_id <= 10.
• Formula: revenue (film_id x) * 100.0/ revenue of all movies.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
film_id revenue_percentage
1 0.05454153589380405482
2 0.07851192534291674250
3 0.05618801685225177037
4 0.13612392572679896957
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Question 59. Percentage of revenue per movie by category medium

Instructio
lms: film_id <= 10 by its category.
• Formula: revenue (film_id x) * 100.0/ revenue of all movies in the same
category.
• Return 3 columns: lm_id, category name, and percentage.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
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length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Table: category
Movie categories.
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
name | text
Sample results
film_id | category_name | revenue_percent_category
---------+---------------+--------------------------
1 | Documentary | 0.87183937479845975834
2 | Horror | 1.4218786097664498
3 | Documentary | 0.89815815929740700696
4 | Horror | 2.4652522202582108
5 | Family | 1.2276180943524362
Question 60. Movie rentals and average rentals in the same category medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of rentals per movie, and the average number of
rentals in its same category.
• You only need to return results for film_id <= 10.
• Return 4 columns: lm_id, category name, number of rentals, and the average number
of rentals from its category.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
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Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Table: category
Movie categories.
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
name | text
Sample results
film_id | category_name | rentals | avg_rentals_category
---------+---------------+---------+----------------------
1 | Documentary | 23 | 16.6666666666666667
2 | Horror | 7 | 15.9622641509433962
3 | Documentary | 12 | 16.6666666666666667
4 | Horror | 23 | 15.9622641509433962
Question 61. Customer spend vs average spend in the same store dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return a customer's life time value for the following: customer_id IN
(1, 100, 101, 200, 201, 300, 301, 400, 401, 500).
• Add a column to compute the average LTV of all customers from the same store.
• Return 4 columns: customer_id, store_id, customer total spend, average customer
spend from the same store.
Hin
• Assumptions: a customer can only be associated with one store.
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Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
customer_id | store_id | ltd_spend | avg
-------------+----------+-----------+----------------------
101 | 1 | 96.76 | 113.3933333333333333
500 | 1 | 115.72 | 113.3933333333333333
201 | 1 | 108.75 | 113.3933333333333333
300 | 1 | 137.69 | 113.3933333333333333
100 | 1 | 102.76 | 113.3933333333333333
1 | 1 | 118.68 | 113.3933333333333333
200 | 2 | 136.73 | 107.2550000000000000
Question 62. Shortest lm by category medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the shortest movie from each category.
• Return the following columns: film_id, title, length, category, row_num
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
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film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: category
Movie categories.
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
name | text
Sample results
film_id | title | length | category | row_num
---------+---------------------+--------+-------------+---------
869 | SUSPECTS QUILLS | 47 | Action | 1
243 | DOORS PRESIDENT | 49 | Animation | 1
505 | LABYRINTH LEAGUE | 44 | Children | 1
Question 63. Top 5 customers by store medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the top 5 customer ids and their rankings based on their spend
for each store.
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
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rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
store_id | customer_id | revenue | ranking
----------+-------------+---------+---------
1 | 148 | 216.54 | 1
1 | 144 | 195.58 | 2
1 | 459 | 186.62 | 3
1 | 468 | 175.61 | 4
1 | 236 | 175.58 | 5
2 | 526 | 221.55 | 1
2 | 178 | 194.61 | 2
2 | 137 | 194.61 | 2
2 | 469 | 177.60 | 3
2 | 181 | 174.66 | 4
2 | 259 | 170.67 | 5
Question 64. Top 2 lms by category dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return top 2 lms based on their rental revenues in their category.
• A lm can only belong to one category.
• Return the following columns: category, film_id, revenue, row_num
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
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Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Table: category
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Movie categories.
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
name | text
Sample results
category | film_id | revenue | row_num
-------------+---------+---------+---------
Action | 327 | 175.77 | 1
Action | 21 | 167.78 | 2
Animation | 239 | 178.70 | 1
Animation | 865 | 170.76 | 2
Children | 48 | 158.81 | 1
Children | 409 | 132.80 | 2
Classics | 843 | 141.77 | 1
Classics | 131 | 137.76 | 2
Question 65. Movie revenue percentiles easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return percentile distribution for the following movies by their total
rental revenues in the entire movie catalog.
• film_id IN (1,10,11,20,21,30).
• Return the following columns: film_id, revenue, percentile
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: lm
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col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
film_id | revenue | percentile
---------+---------+------------
11 | 35.76 | 23
1 | 36.77 | 24
30 | 46.91 | 35
Question 66. Movie percentiles by revenue by category medium

Instructio
• Write a query to generate percentile distribution for the following movies by their total
rental revenue in their category.
• film_id <= 20.
• Use NTILE(100) to create percentile.
• Return the following columns: category, film_id, revenue, percentile
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
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film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
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Table: category
Movie categories.
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
name | text
Sample results
category | film_id | revenue | row_num
-------------+---------+---------+---------
Action | 19 | 33.79 | 11
Animation | 18 | 32.78 | 13
Comedy | 7 | 82.85 | 35
Documentary | 1 | 36.77 | 17
Documentary | 3 | 37.88 | 19
Family | 5 | 51.88 | 30
Question 67. Quartile by number of rentals easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return quartiles for the following movies by number of rentals among all
movies.
• film_id IN (1,10,11,20,21,30).
• Use NTILE(4) to create quartile buckets.
• Return the following columns: film_id, number of rentals, quartile.
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
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length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
film_id | num_rentals | quartile
---------+-------------+----------
30 | 9 | 1
20 | 10 | 1
21 | 22 | 4
Question 68. Spend difference between rst and second rentals dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the difference of the spend amount between the following
customers' rst movie rental and their second rental.
• customer_id in (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).
• Use first spend - second spend to compute the difference.
• Skip users who only rented once.
Hint
• You can use ROW_NUMBER to identify the rst and second transactions.
• You can use LAG or LEAD to nd previous or following transaction amount.
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Sample results
customer_id | delta
-------------+-------
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1 | 2.00
2 | 2.00
3 | -1.00
4 | 4.00
5 | 0.00
Question 69. Number of happy customers dif cult
Instructions
• Write a query to return the number of happy customers from May 24 (inclusive) to May
31 (inclusive).
De nitio
• Happy customer: customers who made at least 1 rental in each day of any 2
consecutive days.
Hin
• For customer 1, you can create the following temporary table:
• customer 1, rst rental date, second rental date
• customer 1, second rental date, third rental date
• ..............
• customer 1, second last rental date, last rental date
• customer 1, last rental date, NULL
• As long as there is at least one row, where the delta of the last 2 columns are not null,
and less or equal than 1 day, this customer must be a happy customer.
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
count
-------
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(1 row)
Question 70. Cumulative spend easy

Instruction
• Write a query to return the cumulative daily spend for the following customers:
• customer_id in (1, 2, 3).
• Each day a user has a rental, return their total spent until that day.
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• If there is no rental on that day, you can skip that day.

Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Sample results
date | customer_id | daily_spend | cumulative_spend
------------+-------------+-------------+------------------
2020-05-25 | 1 | 2.99 | 2.99
2020-05-28 | 1 | 0.99 | 3.98
2020-06-15 | 1 | 16.97 | 20.95
2020-06-16 | 1 | 4.99 | 25.94
2020-06-18 | 1 | 5.98 | 31.92
2020-06-21 | 1 | 3.99 | 35.91
2020-07-08 | 1 | 11.98 | 47.89
2020-07-09 | 1 | 9.98 | 57.87
2020-07-11 | 1 | 7.99 | 65.86
2020-07-27 | 1 | 2.99 | 68.85
Question 71. Cumulative rentals easy

Instruction
• Write a query to return the cumulative daily rentals for the following customers:
• Each day a user had a rental, return their total spent until that day.
• If there is no rental on that day, ignore that day.
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
date | customer_id | daily_rental | cumulative_rentals
------------+-------------+--------------+--------------------
2020-05-27 | 3 | 1 | 1
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2020-05-29 | 3 | 1 | 2
2020-06-16 | 3 | 2 | 4
2020-06-17 | 3 | 1 | 5
2020-06-19 | 3 | 1 | 6
2020-07-07 | 3 | 1 | 7
2020-07-08 | 3 | 1 | 8
Question 72. Days when they became happy customers easy

Instructions
• Any customers who made at least 10 movie rentals are happy customers, write a query
to return the dates when the following customers became happy customers:
• customer_id in (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10).
• You can skip a customer if he/she never became a ‘happy customer'.
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
customer_id | date
-------------+------------
1 | 2020-07-08
2 | 2020-07-29
3 | 2020-07-27
4 | 2020-07-30
5 | 2020-07-06
6 | 2020-07-10
Question 73. Number of days to become a happy customer medium

Instructions
• Any customers who made 10 movie rentals are happy customers
• Write a query to return the average number of days for a customer to make his/her 10th
rental.
• If a customer has never become a ‘happy’ customer, you should skip this customer
when computing the average.
• You can use EXTRACT(DAYS FROM tenth_rental_ts - first_rental_ts) to get the
number of days in between the 1st rental and 10th rental
• Use ROUND(average_days) to return an integer
Table: rental
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col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
avg
-------
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Question 74. The most productive actors by category medium

Instructions
• An actor’s productivity is de ned as the number of movies he/she has played.
• Write a query to return the category_id, actor_id and number of moviesby the
most productive actor in that category.
• For example: John Doe lmed the most action movies, your query will return John as
the result for action movie category.
• Do this for every movie category.
Table: actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | integer
first_name | text
last_name | text
Table: lm_actor
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
actor_id | smallint
film_id | smallint
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
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Sample results
category_id | actor_id | num_movies
-------------+----------+------------
1 | 50 | 6
2 | 150 | 6
3 | 17 | 7
4 | 86 | 6
5 | 196 | 6
6 | 48 | 6
7 | 7 | 7
Question 75. Top customer by movie category medium

Instructio
• For each movie category: return the customer id who spend the most in rentals.
• If there are ties, return any customer id.
Hin
• To save you some time, you can use the following CTE (Common table expression) to
get each customer's spend by movie category:
WITH cust_revenue_by_cat AS (
SELECT
P.customer_id,
FC.category_id,
SUM(P.amount) AS revenue
FROM payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
ON R.rental_id = P.rental_id
INNER JOIN inventory I
ON I.inventory_id = R.inventory_id
INNER JOIN film F
ON F.film_id = I.film_id
GROUP BY P.customer_id, FC.category_id
)
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
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staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
category_id | customer_id
-------------+-------------
1 | 363
2 | 526
3 | 467
4 | 293
5 | 459
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Question 76. Districts with the most and least customers easy

Instruction
• Return the district where the most and least number of customers are.
• Append a column to indicate whether this district has the most customers or least
customers with 'most' or 'least' category.
• HINT: it is possible an address is not associated with any customer.
Table: address
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
address_id | integer
address | text
address2 | text
district | text
city_id | smallint
postal_code | text
phone | text
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
district | cat
---------+----------
New York | most
Kamado | least
Question 77. Movie revenue percentiles by category easy

Instructions
• Write a query to return revenue percentiles (ordered ascendingly) of the following
movies within their category:
• film_id IN (1,2,3,4,5).
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Hin
• Use NTILE(100) to create percentiles.
• To save you some time, here is the CTE to create a movie's revenue by category.
WITH movie_rev_by_cat AS (
SELECT
F.film_id,
MAX(FC.category_id) AS category_id,
FROM film F
ON I.film_id = F.film_id
INNER JOIN rental R
ON R.inventory_id = I.inventory_id
INNER JOIN payment P
ON P.rental_id = R.rental_id
GROUP BY F.film_id
)
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: lm_category
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
Table: lm
col_name | col_type
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----------------------+--------------------------
film_id | integer
title | text
description | text
length | smallint
rating | text
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
film_id | perc_by_cat
---------+-------------
1 | 17
3 | 19
5 | 30
2 | 22
4 | 36
Question 78. Quartiles buckets by number of rentals medium

Instructions
• Write a query to return the quartile by the number of rentals for the following customers:
• customer_id IN (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
Hin
• USE NTILE(4) to create quartiles.
• To save you some time, here is the CTE to create customer rentals by store:
WITH cust_rentals AS (
SELECT C.customer_id,
MAX(C.store_id) AS store_id, -- one customer can only belong to one
store
COUNT(*) AS num_rentals FROM
rental R
INNER JOIN customer C
ON C.customer_id = R.customer_id
GROUP BY C.customer_id
)
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Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Table: customer
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
store_id | smallint
first_name | text
last_name | text
email | text
create_date | date
active | integer
Sample results
customer_id | store_id | quartile
-------------+----------+----------
1 | 1 | 2
2 | 1 | 2
3 | 1 | 1
4 | 2 | 1
Question 79. Spend difference between the last and the second last rentals dif cult
Instruction
• Write a query to return the spend amount difference between the last and the second
last movie rentals for the following customers:
• customer_id IN (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10).
• Skip customers if they made less than 2 rentals.
Hin
• Use ROW_NUMBER to determine the sequence of movie rental
Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
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staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Sample results
customer_id | delta
-------------+-------
1 | 3.00
2 | 0.00
3 | 2.00
4 | -1.00
5 | -2.00
Question 80. DoD revenue growth for each store dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return DoD(day over day) growth for each store from May 24
(inclusive) to May 31 (inclusive).
• DoD: (current_day/ prev_day -1) * 100.0
• Multiply dod growth to 100.0 to get percentage of growth.
• Use ROUND to convert dod growth to the nearest integer.
Hin
• To save you some time, use the following CTE to create a store's daily revenue:
WITH store_daily_rev AS (
SELECT
I.store_id,
DATE(P.payment_ts) date,
SUM(amount) AS daily_rev
FROM
payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
WHERE DATE(P.payment_ts) >= '2020-05-01'
AND DATE(P.payment_ts) <= '2020-05-31'
GROUP BY I.store_id, DATE(P.payment_ts)
)
Table: inventory
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
film_id | smallint
store_id | smallint
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Table: payment
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
staff_id | smallint
rental_id | integer
amount | numeric
Table: rental
col_name | col_type
--------------+--------------------------
rental_id | integer
staff_id | smallint
Sample results
store_id | date | dod_growth
----------+------------+------------
1 | 2020-05-24 |
1 | 2020-05-25 | 2058
1 | 2020-05-26 | 137
1 | 2020-05-27 | 74
1 | 2020-05-28 | 166
1 | 2020-05-29 | 62
1 | 2020-05-30 | 109
1 | 2020-05-31 | 107
2 | 2020-05-24 |
2 | 2020-05-25 | 1794
Question 83. Top search_query in US and UK on new year's day medium
• Write a query to return the top searched term in the US and UK on new year's day
(2021-01-01), separately
• Rank them based on search volume.
Table: search
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col_name| col_type
----------+------------
date | date
user_id | integer
search_id | integer
query | text
Sample results
country | query
--------------+-------
US | Joe Biden
UK | David Beckham
Question 88. Top song report medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the top song id for every country
Table: song_plays
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
date | date
song_id | bigint
num_plays | bigint
Sample results
country | song_id
--------------+-------
US | 12345
UK | 23456
JP | 23456
CA | 12345
AU | 23456
Question 90. Top artist report medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the top artist id for every country
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Table: artist
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
artist_id | bigint
name | VARCHAR(255)
Table: song_plays
col_name | col_type
-------------+--------------------------
date | date
song_id | bigint
num_plays | bigint
Sample results
country | artist_id
--------------+-------
US | 100
UK | 200
JP | 300
CA | 100
AU | 200
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SOLUTIONS
SINGLE TABLE OPERATIONS
Question 1. Top store for movie sales easy

Instructio
Write a query to return the name of the store and its manager, that generated the most sales.
Solutio
SELECT store, manager
FROM sales_by_store
ORDER BY total_sales DESC
LIMIT 1;
Question 2. Top 3 movie categories by sales easy

Instructio
• Write a query to nd the top 3 lm categories that generated the most sales.
Solutio
SELECT category
FROM sales_by_film_category
ORDER BY total_sales DESC
LIMIT 3;
Question 3. Top 5 shortest movies easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the titles of the 5 shortest movies by duration.
Solutio
SELECT title
FROM film
ORDER BY length
LIMIT 5;
Question 4. Staff without a pro le image easy

Instructio
• Write a SQL query to return this staff's rst name and last name.
• Picture eld contains the link that points to a staff's pro le image.
• There is only one staff who doesn't have a pro le picture.
• Use colname IS NULL to identify data that are missing.
Solutio
SELECT first_name, last_name
FROM staff
WHERE picture IS NULL;
Question 5. Monthly revenue easy
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Instructio
• Write a query to return the total movie rental revenue for each month.
• You can use EXTRACT(MONTH FROM colname) and EXTRACT(YEAR FROM colname) to
extract month and year from a timestamp column.
Solutio
SELECT
EXTRACT(YEAR FROM payment_ts) AS year,
EXTRACT(MONTH FROM payment_ts) AS mon,
SUM(amount) as rev
FROM payment
GROUP BY year, mon
ORDER BY year, mon;
Question 6. Daily revenue in June, 2020 easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return daily revenue in June, 2020.
• Use DATE(colname) to extract the date from a timestamp column.
• payment_ts's data type is timestamp, convert it to date before grouping.
• No dates need to be included if there was no revenue on that day.
Solutio
-- For course taker
SELECT
DATE(payment_ts) AS dt,
SUM(amount)
FROM payment
WHERE EXTRACT(MONTH FROM payment_ts) = '6'
AND EXTRACT(YEAR FROM payment_ts) = '2020'
GROUP BY dt
ORDER BY dt;
Solutio
SELECT
DATE(payment_ts) AS dt,
SUM(amount)
FROM payment
WHERE DATE(payment_ts) >= '2020-06-01'
AND DATE(payment_ts) <= '2020-06-30'
GROUP BY dt;
Question 7. Unique customers count by month easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the total number of unique customers for each month
Solutio
SELECT
EXTRACT(YEAR FROM rental_ts) AS year,
EXTRACT(MONTH FROM rental_ts) AS mon,
COUNT(DISTINCT customer_id) AS uu_cnt
FROM rental
GROUP BY year, mon;
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Question 8. Average customer spend by month medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the average customer spend by month.
• De nition: average customer spend: total customer spend divided by the unique
number of customers for that month.
Solutio
SELECT
SUM(amount)/COUNT(DISTINCT customer_id) AS avg_spend
FROM payment
GROUP BY year, mon
ORDER BY year, mon;
Question 9. Number of high spend customers by month medium

Instructio
• Write a query to count the number of customers who spend more than (>) $20 by
month
• Hint: a customer's spend varies every month.
Solutio
SELECT
year,
mon,
COUNT(DISTINCT customer_id)
FROM (
SELECT
customer_id,
SUM(amount) amt
FROM payment
GROUP BY year, mon, customer_id
) X
WHERE amt > 20
GROUP BY 1,2;
Question 10. Min and max spend medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the minimum and maximum customer total spend in June 2020.
• For each customer, rst calculate their total spend in June 2020.
• Then use MIN, and MAX function to return the min and max customer spend .
Solutio
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WITH cust_tot_amt AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
SUM(amount) AS tot_amt
FROM payment
GROUP BY customer_id
)
SELECT
MIN(tot_amt) AS min_spend,
MAX(tot_amt) AS max_spend
FROM cust_tot_amt;
Question 11. Actors' last name easy

Instructio
Find the number of actors whose last name is one of the following: 'DAVIS', 'BRODY',
'ALLEN', 'BERRY'
Solutio
SELECT
last_name,
COUNT(*)
FROM actor
WHERE last_name IN ('DAVIS', 'BRODY', 'ALLEN', 'BERRY')
GROUP BY last_name;
Question 12. Actors' last name ending in 'EN' or 'RY' easy

Instructio
• Identify all actors whose last name ends in 'EN' or 'RY'.
• Group and count them by their last name.
Solutio
SELECT
last_name,
COUNT(*)
FROM actor
WHERE last_name LIKE ('%RY')
OR last_name LIKE ('%EN')
GROUP BY last_name;
Question 13. Actors' rst name medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of actors whose rst name starts with 'A', 'B', 'C', or
others.
• You need to return 2 columns:
• The rst column is the group of actors based on the rst letter of their first_name, use
the following: 'a_actors', 'b_actors', 'c_actors', 'other_actors' to
represent their groups.
• Second column is the number of actors whose rst name matches the pattern.
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Solutio
SELECT
CASE WHEN first_name LIKE 'A%' THEN 'a_actors'
WHEN first_name LIKE 'B%' THEN 'b_actors'
WHEN first_name LIKE 'C%' THEN 'c_actors'
ELSE 'other_actors'
END AS actor_category,
COUNT(*)
FROM actor
GROUP BY actor_category;
Question 14. Good days and bad days dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of good days and bad days in May 2020 based on
number of daily rentals.
• Return the results in one row with 2 columns from left to right: good_days, bad_days.
• good day: > 100 rentals.
• bad day: <= 100 rentals.
• Hint (For users already know OUTER JOIN), you can use dates table
• Hint: be super careful about datetime columns.
• Hint: this problem could be tricky, feel free to explore the rental table and take a look
at some data.
Solutio
-- For people following my course (who have not learned outer join yet)
WITH daily_rentals AS (
SELECT
DATE(rental_ts) AS dt,
COUNT(*) AS num_rentals
FROM rental
WHERE DATE(rental_ts) >= '2020-05-01'
AND DATE(rental_ts) <= '2020-05-31'
GROUP BY dt
)
SELECT
SUM(CASE WHEN num_rentals > 100 THEN 1
ELSE 0
END) AS good_days,
31 - SUM(CASE WHEN num_rentals > 100 THEN 1
ELSE 0
END) AS bad_days
FROM daily_rentals;
Solutio
-- (For users who already know OUTER JOIN):
WITH daily_rentals AS (
SELECT
D.date AS dt,
COUNT(R.rental_id) AS num_rentals
FROM dates D
LEFT JOIN rental R
ON D.date = DATE(R.rental_ts)
WHERE D.date >= '2020-05-01'
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AND D.date <= '2020-05-31'

GROUP BY D.date
)
SELECT
SUM(CASE WHEN num_rentals >100 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS good_days,
SUM(CASE WHEN num_rentals <=100 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS bad_days
FROM daily_rentals;
Question 15. Fast movie watchers vs slow watchers dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of fast movie watchers vs slow movie watchers.
• fast movie watcher: by average return their rentals within 5 days.
• slow movie watcher: takes an average of >5 days to return their rentals.
• Most customers have multiple rentals over time, you need to rst compute the number
of days for each rental transaction, then compute the average on the rounded up days.
e.g., if the rental period is 1 day and 10 hours, count it as 2 days.
• Skip the rentals that have not been returned yet, e.g., rental_ts IS NULL.
• The orders of your results doesn't matter.
• A customer can only rent one movie per transaction.
Solutio
WITH average_rental_days AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
AVG(EXTRACT(days FROM (return_ts - rental_ts) ) + 1) AS average_days
FROM rental
WHERE return_ts IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY 1
)
SELECT CASE WHEN average_days <= 5 THEN 'fast_watcher'
WHEN average_days > 5 THEN 'slow_watcher'
ELSE NULL
END AS watcher_category,
COUNT(*)
FROM average_rental_days
GROUP BY watcher_category;
Question 16. Staff who live in Woodridge easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the names of the staff who live in the city of 'Woodridge'
Solutio
SELECT name
FROM staff_list
WHERE city = 'Woodridge';
Question 17. GROUCHO WILLIAMS’ actor_id easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return GROUCHO WILLIAMS' actor_id.
• Actor's rst_name and last_name are all stored as UPPER case in our database, and
the database is case sensitive.
Solutio
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SELECT actor_id
FROM actor
WHERE first_name = 'GROUCHO'
AND last_name = 'WILLIAMS';
Question 18. Top lm category easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the lm category id with the most lms, as well as the number
lms in that category.
Solutio
SELECT
category_id,
COUNT(*) film_cnt
FROM film_category
GROUP BY category_id
ORDER BY film_cnt DESC
LIMIT 1;
Question 19. Most productive actor medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the rst name and the last name of the actor who appeared in
the most lms.
Solutio
WITH top_actor AS (
SELECT
actor_id,
COUNT(*) AS film_cnt
FROM film_actor
GROUP BY actor_id
ORDER BY film_cnt DESC
LIMIT 1
)
FROM actor A
WHERE A.actor_id
IN (
SELECT actor_id
FROM top_actor
);
Question 20. Customer who spent the most medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the rst and last name of the customer who spent the most on
movie rentals in Feb 2020.
Solutio
WITH cust_feb_spend AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
SUM(amount) AS cust_amt
FROM payment
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ORDER BY cust_amt DESC
LIMIT 1
)
FROM customer
WHERE customer_id IN (
SELECT customer_id
FROM cust_feb_spend
);
Question 21. Customer who rented the most medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the rst and last name of the customer who made the most
rental transactions in May 2020.
Solutio
WITH cust_may_rentals AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
COUNT(*) AS cust_rentals
FROM rental
ORDER BY cust_rentals DESC
LIMIT 1
)
FROM customer
SELECT customer_id
FROM cust_may_rentals
);
Question 22. Average cost per rental transaction easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the average cost on movie rentals in May 2020 per transaction.
Solutio
SELECT AVG(amount)
FROM payment
AND DATE(payment_ts) <= '2020-05-31';
Question 23. Average spend per customer in Feb 2020 easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the average movie rental spend per customer in Feb 2020.
Solutio
WITH cust_feb_spend AS (
SELECT customer_id,
SUM(amount) cust_spend
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FROM payment
WHERE DATE(payment_ts ) >= '2020-02-01'
AND DATE(payment_ts ) <= '2020-02-28'
)
SELECT AVG(cust_spend)
FROM cust_feb_spend
;
Question 24. Films with more than 10 actors medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the titles of the lms with >= 10 actors.
Solutio
WITH film_casts_cnt AS (
SELECT
film_id,
COUNT(*) AS actors_cnt
FROM film_actor
GROUP BY film_id
HAVING COUNT(*)>=10
)
SELECT title
FROM film
WHERE film_id IN (
SELECT film_id
FROM film_casts_cnt
)
Question 25. Shortest lm easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the title of the lm with the minimum duration.
• If there are ties, e.g., two movies have the same length, return either one of them.
Solutio
SELECT title
FROM film
ORDER BY length
LIMIT 1;
Question 26. Second shortest lm medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the title of the second shortest lm based on its duration/length.
Solutio
WITH shortest_2 AS (
SELECT film_id, length
FROM film
ORDER BY length
LIMIT 2
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SELECT title
FROM film
WHERE film_id IN (
SELECT film_id
FROM shortest_2
ORDER BY length DESC
LIMIT 1
);
Question 27. Film with the largest cast easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the title of the lm with the largest cast (most actors).
Solutio
WITH film_size AS (
SELECT film_id,
FROM film_actor
GROUP BY film_id
ORDER BY actors_cnt DESC
LIMIT 1
)
SELECT title
FROM film
WHERE film_id IN (
SELECT film_id
FROM film_size
);
Question 28. Film with the second largest cast medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the title of the lm with the second largest cast.
• If there are ties, e.g., two movies have the same number of actors, return either one of
the movie.
Solutio
WITH film_size AS (
SELECT film_id,
FROM film_actor
GROUP BY film_id
ORDER BY actors_cnt DESC
LIMIT 2
)
SELECT title
FROM film
WHERE film_id IN (
SELECT film_id
FROM film_size
ORDER BY actors_cnt
LIMIT 1
);
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Question 29. Second highest spend customer medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the name of the customer who spent the second highest for
movie rentals in May 2020.
Solutio
WITH cust_spend_may AS (
SELECT customer_id,
SUM(amount) AS cust_spend
FROM payment
WHERE payment_ts >= '2020-05-01'
AND payment_ts < '2020-06-01'
ORDER BY cust_spend DESC
LIMIT 2
)
SELECT
first_name,
last_name
FROM customer
SELECT customer_id
FROM cust_spend_may
ORDER BY cust_spend
LIMIT 1
);
Question 30. Inactive customers in May easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the total number of customers who didn't rent any movies in May
2020.
Hin
• You can use NOT IN to exclude customers who have rented movies in May 2020.
Solutio
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM customer
WHERE customer_id NOT IN(
SELECT customer_id
FROM rental
);
Question 31. Movies that have not been returned easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the titles of the lms that have not been returned by our
customers.
Hin
• If a movie is not returned, the return_ts will be NULL in the rental table.
Solutio
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WITH out_film AS (
SELECT DISTINCT film_id
FROM inventory
WHERE inventory_id IN (
SELECT inventory_id
FROM rental
WHERE return_ts IS NULL
)
)
SELECT title
FROM film
WHERE film_id IN (
SELECT film_id
FROM out_film
)
;
Question 32. Unpopular movies dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of lms with no rentals in Feb 2020.
• Count the entire movie catalog from the film table.
Solutio
WITH rented_film AS (
SELECT DISTINCT film_id
FROM inventory
WHERE inventory_id IN(
SELECT inventory_id
FROM rental
)
)
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM film
WHERE film_id NOT IN(
SELECT film_id
FROM rented_film
);
Question 33. Returning customers medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of customers who rented at least one movie in both
May 2020 and June 2020.
Solutio
WITH may_cust AS (
SELECT DISTINCT customer_id AS may_cust_id
FROM rental
)
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SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT customer_id)

FROM rental
AND customer_id IN (
SELECT may_cust_id
FROM may_cust
);
Question 34. Stocked up movies easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the titles of movies with more than >7 dvd copies in the
inventory.
Solutio
SELECT title
FROM film
WHERE film_id IN (
SELECT
film_id
FROM inventory
GROUP BY film_id
HAVING COUNT(*) >=8
);
Question 35. Film length report easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of lms in the following categories: short, medium,
and long.
De nitio
• short: less <60 minutes.
• medium: >=60 minutes, but <100 minutes.
• long: >=100 minutes
Solutio
SELECT
CASE WHEN length < 60 THEN 'short'
WHEN length < 100 THEN 'medium'
WHEN length >= 100 THEN 'long'
ELSE NULL
END AS film_category,
COUNT(*)
FROM film
GROUP BY film_category;
Question 81. How many people searched on new year's day easy
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Write a query to return the total number of users who have searched on new year's day:
2021-01-01. Solutio
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT user_id)
FROM search
WHERE date = '2021-01-01';
Solutio
SELECT COUNT(user_id) FROM (
SELECT
user_id
FROM search
WHERE date = '2021-01-01'
GROUP BY 1
) X;
Question 82. The top search query on new year's day easy

Write a query to return the top search term on new year's day: 2021-01-01 Solutio
SELECT query FROM (
SELECT
query,
COUNT(*)
FROM search
WHERE date = '2021-01-01'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 2 DESC
LIMIT 1
) X
Question 84. Click through rate on new year's day easy

Write a query to compute the click through rate for the search results on new year's
•
day (2021-01-01).
• Convert your result into a percentage (* 100.0).
Solutio
SELECT
COUNT(DISTINCT CASE WHEN action = 'click' THEN search_id ELSE NULL END) *
100.0/COUNT(DISTINCT search_id)
FROM search_result
WHERE date = '2021-01-01';
Question 85. Top 5 queries based on click through rate on new year's day dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the top 5 search terms with the highest click through rate on
new year's day (2021-01-01)
• The search term has to be searched by more than 2 (>2) distinct users.
Solutio
WITH click_through_rate AS (
SELECT
S.query,
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COUNT(DISTINCT CASE WHEN action='click' THEN S.search_id ELSE NULL

END) * 100/COUNT(DISTINCT S.search_id) ctr
FROM
search S
INNER JOIN search_result R
ON S.search_id = R.search_id
WHERE S.date = '2021-01-01'
GROUP BY S.query
HAVING COUNT(DISTINCT S.user_id) > 2
)
SELECT query
FROM click_through_rate
ORDER BY ctr DESC
LIMIT 5;
Question 86. Top song in the US easy

Write a query to return the name of the top song in the US yesterday. Solutio
SELECT title FROM SONG
WHERE song_id IN (
SELECT d.song_id, s.name, d.plays
FROM daily_plays d
WHERE d.country = 'US'
AND d.date = CURRENT_DATE - 1
ORDER BY plays DESC
LIMIT 1
);
Question 89. Top 5 artists in the US medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the top 5 artists id for US yesterday.
Solutio
WITH artist_plays AS (
SELECT
S.artist_id,
P.country,
SUM(num_plays) num_plays
FROM song_plays P
INNER JOIN song S
ON S.song_id = P.song_id
WHERE P.date = CURRENT_DATE - 1
GROUP BY 1,2
)
SELECT artist_id
FROM artist_plays
ORDER BY num_plays DESC
LIMIT 5;
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Question 36. Actors from lm 'AFRICAN EGG' easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the rst name and last name of all actors in the lm 'AFRICAN
EGG'.
Solutio
SELECT A.first_name, A.last_name
FROM film F
INNER JOIN film_actor FA
ON FA.film_id = F.film_id
INNER JOIN actor A
ON A.actor_id = FA.actor_id
WHERE F.title = 'AFRICAN EGG';
Question 37. Most popular movie category easy

Instructio
• Return the name of the category that has the most lms.
Solutio
SELECT
C.name
FROM film_category FC
GROUP BY C.name
ORDER BY COUNT(*) DESC
LIMIT 1;
Question 38. Most popular movie category (name and id) medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the name of the most popular lm category and its category id
Solutio
SELECT
C.category_id,
MAX(C.name) AS name
FROM film_category FC
GROUP BY C.category_id
LIMIT 1;
Question 39. Most productive actor with inner join easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the name of the actor who appears in the most lms.
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• You have to use INNER JOIN in your query.

Solutio
SELECT
FA.actor_id,
MAX(A.first_name) first_name,
MAX(A.last_name) last_name
FROM film_actor FA
INNER JOIN actor A
ON A.actor_id = FA.actor_id
GROUP BY FA.actor_id
LIMIT 1;
Question 40. Top 5 most rented movie in June 2020 medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the film_id and title of the top 5 movies that were rented the
most times in June 2020
• Use the rental_ts column from the rental for the transaction time.
• If there are ties, return any 5 of them.
Solutio
SELECT
F.film_id,
MAX(F.title) AS title
FROM rental R
INNER JOIN film F
GROUP BY F.film_id
LIMIT 5;
Question 41. Productive actors vs less-productive actors medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of productive and less-productive actors.
De nitio
• productive: appeared in >= 30 lms.
• less-productive: appeared in <30 lms.
Solutio
SELECT actor_category,
COUNT(*)
FROM (
SELECT
A.actor_id,
CASE WHEN COUNT(DISTINCT FA.film_id) >= 30 THEN 'productive' ELSE
'less productive' END AS actor_category
FROM actor A
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LEFT JOIN film_actor FA

ON FA.actor_id = A.actor_id
GROUP BY A.actor_id
) X
GROUP BY actor_category;
Question 42. Films that are in stock vs not in stock medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of lms that we have inventory vs no inventory.
• A lm can have multiple inventory ids
• Each lm dvd copy has a unique inventory ids
Solutio
SELECT in_stock, COUNT(*)
FROM (
SELECT
F.film_id,
MAX(CASE WHEN I.inventory_id IS NULL THEN 'not in stock' ELSE 'in
stock' END) in_stock
FROM film F
LEFT JOIN INVENTORY I
ON F.film_id =I.film_id
GROUP BY F.film_id
) X
GROUP BY in_stock;
Question 43. Customers who rented vs. those who did not medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of customers who rented at least one movie vs.
those who didn't in May 2020.
• Use customer table as the base table for all customers (assuming all customers have
signed up before May 2020)
• Rented: if a customer rented at least one movie.
• Bonus: Develop a LEFT JOIN as well as a RIGHT JOIN solution
Solutio
SELECT have_rented, COUNT(*)
FROM (
SELECT
C.customer_id,
CASE WHEN R.customer_id IS NOT NULL THEN 'rented' ELSE 'never-
rented' END AS have_rented
FROM customer C
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT DISTINCT customer_id
FROM rental
) R
ON R.customer_id = C.customer_id
) X
GROUP BY have_rented;
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Question 44. In-demand vs not-in-demand movies medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of in demand and not in demand movies in May
2020.
• Assumptions (great to clarify in your interview): all lms are available for rent before
May.
• But if a lm is not in stock, it is not in demand.
De nitio
• in-demand: rented >1 times in May 2020.
• not-in-demand: rented <= 1 time in May 2020.
Solutio
SELECT demand_category, COUNT(*)
FROM (
SELECT
F.film_id,
CASE WHEN COUNT(R.rental_id) >1 THEN 'in demand' ELSE 'not in
demand' END AS demand_category
FROM film F
LEFT JOIN INVENTORY I
ON F.film_id =I.film_id
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT inventory_id, rental_id
FROM rental
) R
GROUP BY F.film_id
)X
GROUP BY demand_category;
Question 45. Movie inventory optimization dif cult
Instructio
• For movies that are not in demand (rentals = 0 in May 2020), we want to remove them
from our inventory.
• Write a query to return the number of unique inventory_id from those movies with 0
demand.
• Hint: a movie can have multiple inventory_id.
Solutio
SELECT COUNT(inventory_id )
FROM inventory I
INNER JOIN (
SELECT F.film_id
FROM film F
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT DISTINCT I.film_id
FROM inventory I
INNER JOIN (
SELECT inventory_id, rental_id
FROM rental
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) R
) X ON X.film_id = F.film_id
WHERE X.film_id IS NULL
)Y
ON Y.film_id = I.film_id;
Question 46. Actors and customers whose last name starts with 'A' easy
Instructio
• Write a query to return unique names ( rst_name, last_name) of
our customers and actors whose last name starts with letter 'A'.
Solutio
FROM customer
WHERE last_name LIKE 'A%'
UNION
FROM actor
WHERE last_name LIKE 'A%';
Question 47. Actors and customers whose rst names end in 'D'. easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return all actors and customers whose rst names ends in 'D'.
• Return their ids (for actor: use actor_id,
customer: customer_id), first_name and last_name.
Solutio
SELECT customer_id, first_name, last_name
FROM customer
WHERE first_name LIKE '%D'
UNION
SELECT actor_id, first_name, last_name
FROM actor
WHERE first_name LIKE '%D';
Question 48. Movie and TV actors easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return actors who appeared in both tv and movies
• You need to use INNER JOIN.
Solutio
SELECT
M.actor_id,
M.first_name,
M.last_name
FROM actor_movie M
INNER JOIN actor_tv T
ON T.actor_id = M.actor_id;
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Question 49. Top 3 money making movie categories medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the name of the 3 movie categories that generated the most
rental revenue
• And rental revenue from each of the category.
Solutio
SELECT C.name, SUM(P.amount)
FROM
payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
INNER JOIN film F
GROUP BY C.name
ORDER BY SUM(P.amount) DESC
LIMIT 3
;
Question 50. Top 5 cities for movie rentals easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the names of the top 5 cities with the most rental revenues in
2020.
• Include each city's revenue in the second column.
• Yours results should have exactly 5 rows.
Solutio
SELECT
T.city,
SUM(P.amount)
FROM payment P
ON C.customer_id = P.customer_id
INNER JOIN address A
ON A.address_id = C.address_id
INNER JOIN city T
ON T.city_id = A.city_id
GROUP BY T.city
ORDER BY SUM(P.amount) DESC
LIMIT 5;
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Question 51. Movie only actor easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the rst name and last name of actors who only appeared in
movies.
• Actor appeared in tv should not be included .
Solutio
SELECT M.first_name, M.last_name
FROM actor_movie M
LEFT JOIN actor_tv T
ON M.actor_id = T.actor_id
WHERE T.actor_id IS NULL;
Question 52. Movies cast by movie only actors dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the film_id with movie only casts (actors who never appeared
in tv).
• You should exclude movies with one or more tv actors
Solutio
SELECT F.film_id
FROM film F
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT DISTINCT FA.film_id
FROM film_actor FA
INNER JOIN actor_tv T
ON T.actor_id = FA.actor_id
) X
ON F.film_id = X.film_id
WHERE X.film_id IS NULL;
Question 53. Movie groups by rental income dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of lms in 3 separate groups: high, medium, low.
De nitio
• high: revenue >= $100.
• medium: revenue >= $20, <$100 .
• low: revenue <$20.
Hin
• If a movie has no rental revenue, it belongs to the low group
Solutio
SELECT film_group, COUNT(*)
FROM (
SELECT
F.film_id,
CASE WHEN SUM(P.amount) >= 100 THEN 'high'
WHEN SUM(P.amount) >= 20 THEN 'medium'
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ELSE 'low' END film_group

FROM film F
LEFT JOIN inventory I
LEFT JOIN rental R
LEFT JOIN payment P
GROUP BY F.film_id
) X
GROUP BY film_group
;
Question 54. Customer groups by movie rental spend medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of customers in 3 separate groups: high, medium,
low.
De nitio
• high: movie rental spend >= $150.
• medium: movie rental spend >= $100, <$150.
• low: movie rental spend <$100.
Hin
• If a customer spend 0 in movie rentals, he/she belongs to the low group.
Solutio
SELECT customer_group, COUNT(*)
FROM (
SELECT
C.customer_id,
CASE WHEN SUM(P.amount) >= 150 THEN 'high'
WHEN SUM(P.amount) >= 100 THEN 'medium'
ELSE 'low' END customer_group
FROM customer C
LEFT JOIN payment P
ON P.customer_id = C.customer_id
) X
GROUP BY customer_group
;
Question 55. Busy days and slow days medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the number of busy days and slow days in May 2020 based on
the number of movie rentals.
De nitio
• busy: rentals >= 100.
• slow: rentals < 100.
Solutio
SELECT date_category, COUNT(*)
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FROM (
SELECT D.date,
CASE WHEN COUNT(*) >= 100 THEN 'busy' ELSE 'slow' END date_category
FROM dates D
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT * FROM rental
) R
ON D.date = DATE(R.rental_ts)
WHERE D.date >= '2020-05-01'
AND D.date <= '2020-05-31'
GROUP BY D.date
) X
GROUP BY date_category
;
Question 56. Total number of actors easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the total number of actors from actor_tv, actor_movie with FULL
OUTER JOIN.
• Use COALESCE to return the rst non-null value from a list.
• Actors who appear in both tv and movie share the same value of actor_id in both
Solutio
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT actor_id) FROM (
SELECT
COALESCE(T.actor_id, M.actor_id) AS actor_id
FROM actor_tv T
FULL OUTER JOIN
actor_movie M
ON M.actor_id = T.actor_id
) X;
Question 57. Total number of actors (with UNION) easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return the total number of actors using UNION.
• Actor who appeared in both tv and movie has the same value of actor_id in both
Solutio
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM (
SELECT
T.actor_id
FROM actor_tv T
UNION
SELECT
M.actor_id
FROM actor_movie M
) X;
Question 87. Top song in the US and UK medium
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Write a query to return the name of the top song in the US and UK yesterday,
respectively. Solutio
WITH top_song AS (
SELECT
S.song_id,
P.country,
MAX(S.name) AS song_name,
SUM(plays) num_plays
FROM daily_plays P
INNER JOIN song S
ON P.song_id = S.id
AND country = 'US'
LIMIT 1
UNION ALL
SELECT
S.song_id,
P.country,
MAX(S.name) AS song_name,
SUM(plays) num_plays
FROM daily_plays P
INNER JOIN song S
ON P.song_id = S.id
AND country = 'UK'
LIMIT 1
)
SELECT country, song_name
FROM top_song;
WINDOW FUNCTIONS
Question 58. Percentage of revenue per movie medium

Instructio
lms: film_id <= 10.
• Formula: revenue (film_id x) * 100.0/ revenue of all movies.
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Solutio
WITH movie_revenue AS (
SELECT
I.film_id, SUM(P.amount) revenue
FROM payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
GROUP BY I.film_id
)
SELECT film_id, revenue * 100.0 / SUM(revenue) OVER() revenue_percentage
FROM movie_revenue
ORDER BY film_id
LIMIT 10
;
Question 59. Percentage of revenue per movie by category medium

Instructio
lms: film_id <= 10 by its category.
• Formula: revenue (film_id x) * 100.0/ revenue of all movies in the same
category.
• Return 3 columns: lm_id, category name, and percentage.
Solutio
WITH movie_revenue AS (
SELECT
I.film_id, SUM(P.amount) revenue
FROM payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
GROUP BY I.film_id
)
SELECT
MR.film_id,
C.name category_name,
revenue * 100.0 / SUM(revenue) OVER(PARTITION BY C.name)
revenue_percent_category
FROM movie_revenue MR
ON FC.film_id = MR.film_id
ORDER BY film_id
LIMIT 10
;
Question 60. Movie rentals and average rentals in the same category medium

Instructio
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•
rentals in its same category.
• You only need to return results for film_id <= 10.
• Return 4 columns: lm_id, category name, number of rentals, and the average number
of rentals from its category.
Solutio
WITH movie_rental AS (
SELECT
I.film_id,
COUNT(*) rentals
FROM rental R
GROUP BY I.film_id
)
SELECT
film_id,
category_name,
rentals,
avg_rentals_category
FROM (
SELECT
MR.film_id,
C.name category_name,
rentals,
AVG(rentals) OVER(PARTITION BY C.name) avg_rentals_category
FROM movie_rental MR
ON FC.film_id = MR.film_id
) X
WHERE film_id <= 10
;
Question 61. Customer spend vs average spend in the same store dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return a customer's life time value for the following: customer_id IN
(1, 100, 101, 200, 201, 300, 301, 400, 401, 500).
• Add a column to compute the average LTV of all customers from the same store.
• Return 4 columns: customer_id, store_id, customer total spend, average customer
spend from the same store.
Hin
• Assumptions: a customer can only be associated with one store.
Solutio
WITH customer_ltd_spend AS (
SELECT
P.customer_id,
MAX(store_id) store_id,
SUM(P.amount) ltd_spend
FROM payment P
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ON C.customer_id = P.customer_id
GROUP BY P.customer_id
)
SELECT customer_id, store_id, ltd_spend, store_avg

FROM (
SELECT
customer_id,
store_id,
ltd_spend,
AVG(ltd_spend) OVER(PARTITION BY store_id) as store_avg
FROM customer_ltd_spend CLS
) X
WHERE X.customer_id IN (1,100,101, 200, 201, 300,301, 400, 401, 500)
ORDER BY 1;
Question 62. Shortest lm by category medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the shortest movie from each category.
• Return the following columns: film_id, title, length, category, row_num
Solutio
WITH movie_ranking AS (
SELECT
F.film_id,
F.title,
F.length,
C.name category,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY C.name ORDER BY F.length) row_num
FROM film F
)
SELECT
film_id,
title,
length,
category,
row_num
FROM movie_ranking
WHERE row_num = 1
;
Solutio
SELECT
film_id,
title,
length,
category,
row_num
FROM (
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SELECT
F.film_id,
F.title,
F.length,
C.name category,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY C.name ORDER BY F.length) row_num
FROM film F
) X
WHERE row_num = 1
;
Question 63. Top 5 customers by store medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the top 5 customer ids and their rankings based on their spend
for each store.
Solutio
WITH cust_revenue AS (
SELECT
C.customer_id,
MAX(store_id) store_id,
SUM(amount) revenue
FROM customer C
ON P.customer_id = C.customer_id
)
SELECT * FROM (
SELECT
store_id,
customer_id,
revenue,
DENSE_RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY store_id ORDER BY revenue DESC) ranking
FROM cust_revenue
) X
WHERE ranking <= 5;
Question 64. Top 2 lms by category dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return top 2 lms based on their rental revenues in their category.
• Return the following columns: category, film_id, revenue, row_num
Solutio
WITH film_revenue AS (
SELECT
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F.film_id,
MAX(C.name) AS category,
SUM(P.amount) revenue
FROM payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
INNER JOIN film F
GROUP BY F.film_id
)
SELECT * FROM (
SELECT
category,
FR.film_id,
revenue,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY category ORDER BY revenue DESC) row_num
FROM film_revenue FR
ON FC.film_id = FR.film_id
) X
WHERE row_num <= 2;
Question 65. Movie revenue percentiles easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return percentile distribution for the following movies by their total
rental revenues in the entire movie catalog.
• film_id IN (1,10,11,20,21,30).
• Return the following columns: film_id, revenue, percentile
Solutio
WITH film_revenue AS (
SELECT
F.film_id,
SUM(P.amount) revenue,
NTILE(100) OVER(ORDER BY SUM(P.amount)) AS percentile
FROM payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
INNER JOIN film F
GROUP BY F.film_id
)
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SELECT
film_id,
revenue,
percentile
FROM film_revenue
WHERE film_id IN (1,10,11,20,21,30);
Question 66. Movie percentiles by revenue by category medium

Instructio
• Write a query to generate percentile distribution for the following movies by their total
rental revenue in their category.
• film_id <= 20.
• Use NTILE(100) to create percentile.
• Return the following columns: category, film_id, revenue, percentile
Solutio
WITH film_revenue_by_cat AS (
SELECT
F.film_id,
MAX(C.name) AS category,
SUM(P.amount) revenue
FROM payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
INNER JOIN film F
GROUP BY F.film_id
)
SELECT
category,
film_id,
revenue,
percentile
FROM (
SELECT
category,
FR.film_id,
revenue,
NTILE(100) OVER(PARTITION BY category ORDER BY revenue) percentile
FROM film_revenue_by_cat FR
ON FC.film_id = FR.film_id
) X
WHERE film_id <=20
ORDER BY category, revenue;
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Question 67. Quartile by number of rentals easy

Instructio
• Write a query to return quartiles for the following movies by number of rentals among all
movies.
• film_id IN (1,10,11,20,21,30).
• Use NTILE(4) to create quartile buckets.
• Return the following columns: film_id, number of rentals, quartile.
Solutio
WITH movie_rentals AS (
SELECT
F.film_id,
COUNT(*) AS num_rentals,
NTILE(4) OVER(ORDER BY COUNT(*)) AS quartile
FROM rental R
INNER JOIN film F
GROUP BY F.film_id
)
SELECT *
FROM movie_rentals
WHERE film_id IN (1,10,11,20,21,30);
Question 68. Spend difference between rst and second rentals dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return the difference of the spend amount between the following
customers' rst movie rental and their second rental.
• customer_id in (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).
• Use first spend - second spend to compute the difference.
• Skip users who only rented once.
Hint
• You can use ROW_NUMBER to identify the rst and second transactions.
• You can use LAG or LEAD to nd previous or following transaction amount.
Solutio
SELECT customer_id,
prev_amount - current_amount AS delta
FROM (
SELECT
customer_id,
payment_ts,
amount as current_amount,
LAG(amount, 1) OVER(PARTITION BY customer_id ORDER BY payment_ts ) AS
prev_amount,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY customer_id ORDER BY payment_ts) AS
payment_idx
FROM payment
WHERE customer_id IN
(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
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) X
WHERE payment_idx = 2;
Question 69. Number of happy customers dif cult
Instructions
• Write a query to return the number of happy customers from May 24 (inclusive) to May
31 (inclusive).
De nitio
• Happy customer: customers who made at least 1 rental in each day of any 2
consecutive days.
Hin
• For customer 1, you can create the following temporary table:
• customer 1, rst rental date, second rental date
• customer 1, second rental date, third rental date
• ..............
• customer 1, second last rental date, last rental date
• customer 1, last rental date, NULL
• As long as there is at least one row, where the delta of the last 2 columns are not null,
and less or equal than 1 day, this customer must be a happy customer.
Solutio
WITH customer_rental_date AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
DATE(rental_ts) AS rental_date
FROM rental
GROUP BY
customer_id,
DATE(rental_ts)
),
customer_rental_date_diff AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
rental_date AS current_rental_date,
LAG( rental_date, 1) OVER(PARTITION BY customer_id ORDER BY
rental_date) AS prev_rental_date
FROM customer_rental_date
)
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM (

SELECT
customer_id,
MIN(current_rental_date - prev_rental_date)
FROM customer_rental_date_diff
HAVING MIN(current_rental_date - prev_rental_date) = 1
) X
;
Question 70. Cumulative spend easy
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Instruction
• Write a query to return the cumulative daily spend for the following customers:
• Each day a user has a rental, return their total spent until that day.
• If there is no rental on that day, you can skip that day.
Solutio
WITH customer_spend AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
SUM(amount) AS daily_spend
FROM payment
WHERE customer_id IN (1, 2, 3)
GROUP BY DATE(payment_ts), customer_id
)
SELECT
date,
customer_id,
daily_spend,
SUM(daily_spend) OVER(PARTITION BY customer_id ORDER BY date)
cumulative_spend
FROM customer_spend;
Question 71. Cumulative rentals easy

Instruction
• Write a query to return the cumulative daily rentals for the following customers:
• Each day a user had a rental, return their total spent until that day.
• If there is no rental on that day, ignore that day.
Solutio
WITH customer_rentals AS (
SELECT
DATE(rental_ts) date,
customer_id,
COUNT(*) AS daily_rental
FROM rental
WHERE customer_id IN (3,4,5)
GROUP BY DATE(rental_ts), customer_id
)
SELECT
date,
customer_id,
daily_rental,
SUM(daily_rental) OVER(PARTITION BY customer_id ORDER BY date)
cumulative_rentals
FROM customer_rentals;
Question 72. Days when they became happy customers easy

Instructions
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Any customers who made at least 10 movie rentals are happy customers, write a query
•
to return the dates when the following customers became happy customers:
• customer_id in (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10).
• You can skip a customer if he/she never became a ‘happy customer'.
Solutio
WITH cust_rental_dates AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
DATE(rental_ts) date,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY customer_id ORDER BY rental_ts)
rental_idx
FROM rental
WHERE customer_id IN (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
)
SELECT
customer_id,
date
FROM cust_rental_dates
WHERE rental_idx = 10;
Question 73. Number of days to become a happy customer medium

Instructions
• Any customers who made 10 movie rentals are happy customers
• Write a query to return the average number of days for a customer to make his/her 10th
rental.
• If a customer has never become a ‘happy’ customer, you should skip this customer
when computing the average.
• You can use EXTRACT(DAYS FROM tenth_rental_ts - first_rental_ts) to get the
number of days in between the 1st rental and 10th rental
• Use ROUND(average_days) to return an integer
Solutio
WITH cust_rental_ts AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
rental_ts,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY customer_id ORDER BY rental_ts)
rental_idx
FROM rental
)
SELECT ROUND(AVG(delta)) AS avg_days FROM (
SELECT
customer_id,
first_rental_ts,
tenth_rental_ts,
EXTRACT(DAYS FROM tenth_rental_ts - first_rental_ts) AS delta
FROM (
SELECT
customer_id,
MAX(CASE WHEN rental_idx = 1 THEN rental_ts ELSE NULL END) AS
first_rental_ts,
MAX(CASE WHEN rental_idx = 10 THEN rental_ts ELSE NULL END) AS
tenth_rental_ts
FROM cust_rental_ts
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) X
WHERE tenth_rental_ts IS NOT NULL
)Y;
Question 74. The most productive actors by category medium

Instructions
• An actor’s productivity is de ned as the number of movies he/she has played.
• Write a query to return the category_id, actor_id and number of moviesby the
most productive actor in that category.
• For example: John Doe lmed the most action movies, your query will return John as
the result for action movie category.
• Do this for every movie category.
Solutio
WITH actor_movies AS (
SELECT
FC.category_id,
FA.actor_id,
COUNT(DISTINCT F.film_id) num_movies
FROM film_actor FA
INNER JOIN film F
ON F.film_id = FA.film_id
GROUP BY FC.category_id, FA.actor_id
)
SELECT category_id, actor_id, num_movies
FROM (
SELECT
category_id,
actor_id,
num_movies,
ROW_NUMBER()OVER(PARTITION BY category_id ORDER BY num_movies DESC)
AS productivity_idx
FROM actor_movies
) X
WHERE productivity_idx = 1;
Question 75. Top customer by movie category medium

Instructio
• For each movie category: return the customer id who spend the most in rentals.
• If there are ties, return any customer id.
Hin
• To save you some time, you can use the following CTE (Common table expression) to
get each customer's spend by movie category:
SELECT
P.customer_id,
FC.category_id,
FROM payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
135

fi

fi

INNER JOIN film F
)
Solutio
SELECT
P.customer_id,
FC.category_id,
FROM payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
INNER JOIN film F
)
SELECT category_id, customer_id
FROM (
SELECT
customer_id,
category_id,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY category_id ORDER BY revenue DESC) AS
rev_cat_idx
FROM cust_revenue_by_cat
) X
WHERE rev_cat_idx = 1;
Question 76. Districts with the most and least customers easy

Instruction
• Return the district where the most and least number of customers are.
• Append a column to indicate whether this district has the most customers or least
customers with 'most' or 'least' category.
• HINT: it is possible an address is not associated with any customer.
Solutio
WITH district_cust_cnt AS (
SELECT
A.district,
COUNT(DISTINCT C.customer_id) cust_cnt,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY COUNT(DISTINCT C.customer_id) ASC) AS
cust_asc_idx,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY COUNT(DISTINCT C.customer_id) DESC) AS
cust_desc_idx
FROM address A
LEFT JOIN customer C
136

ON A.address_id = C.address_id
GROUP BY A.district
)
SELECT
district,
'least' AS city_cat
FROM district_cust_cnt
WHERE cust_asc_idx = 1
UNION
SELECT
district,
'most' AS city_cat
FROM district_cust_cnt
WHERE cust_desc_idx = 1
;
Question 77. Movie revenue percentiles by category easy

Instructions
• Write a query to return revenue percentiles (ordered ascendingly) of the following
movies within their category:
• film_id IN (1,2,3,4,5).
Hin
• Use NTILE(100) to create percentiles.
• To save you some time, here is the CTE to create a movie's revenue by category.
SELECT
F.film_id,
FROM film F
INNER JOIN rental R
GROUP BY F.film_id
)
Solutio
SELECT
F.film_id,
FROM film F
INNER JOIN rental R
137

GROUP BY F.film_id
)
SELECT film_id, perc_by_cat
FROM (
SELECT film_id,
NTILE(100) OVER(PARTITION BY category_id ORDER BY revenue) AS
perc_by_cat
FROM movie_rev_by_cat
)X
WHERE film_id IN (1,2,3,4,5);
Question 78. Quartiles buckets by number of rentals medium

Instructions
• Write a query to return the quartile by the number of rentals for the following customers:
• customer_id IN (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
Hin
• USE NTILE(4) to create quartiles.
• To save you some time, here is the CTE to create customer rentals by store:
store
rental R
)
Solutio
store
rental R
)
SELECT customer_id, store_id, quartile
FROM (
SELECT
customer_id,
store_id,
NTILE(4) OVER(PARTITION BY store_id ORDER BY num_rentals) AS
quartile
FROM cust_rentals
) X
WHERE customer_id IN (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10);
Question 79. Spend difference between the last and the second last rentals dif cult
Instruction
138

fi

Write a query to return the spend amount difference between the last and the second
•
last movie rentals for the following customers:
• customer_id IN (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10).
• Skip customers if they made less than 2 rentals.
Hin
• Use ROW_NUMBER to determine the sequence of movie rental
Solutio
WITH cust_spend_seq AS (
SELECT
customer_id,
payment_ts,
amount AS current_payment,
LAG(amount, 1) OVER(PARTITION BY customer_id ORDER BY payment_ts) AS
prev_payment,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY customer_id ORDER BY payment_ts DESC)
AS payment_idx
FROM payment P
)
SELECT
customer_id,
current_payment - prev_payment AS delta
FROM cust_spend_seq
WHERE customer_id IN(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
AND payment_idx = 1;
Question 80. DoD revenue growth for each store dif cult
Instructio
• Write a query to return DoD(day over day) growth for each store from May 24
(inclusive) to May 31 (inclusive).
• DoD: (current_day/ prev_day -1) * 100.0
• Multiply dod growth to 100.0 to get percentage of growth.
• Use ROUND to convert dod growth to the nearest integer.
Hin
• To save you some time, use the following CTE to create a store's daily revenue:
SELECT
I.store_id,
FROM
payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
)
Solutio
SELECT
139

fi

I.store_id,
FROM
payment P
INNER JOIN rental R
)
SELECT
store_id,
date,
ROUND( (daily_rev / LAG(daily_rev, 1) OVER(PARTITION BY store_id ORDER BY
date) -1) * 100.0 ) AS dod_growth
FROM store_daily_rev;
Question 83. Top search_query in US and UK on new year's day medium

Write a query to return the top searched term in the US and UK on new year's day
•
(2021-01-01), separately
• Rank them based on search volume.
Solutio
SELECT
country,
query
FROM (
SELECT
query,
country,
COUNT(DISTINCT user_id),
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY country ORDER BY COUNT(DISTINCT
user_id) DESC) AS row_num
FROM search
WHERE country IN ('US', 'UK')
AND date = '2021-01-01'
GROUP BY 1,2
) X
WHERE row_num = 1;
Question 88. Top song report medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the top song id for every country
140
Solutio
WITH song_rankings AS (
SELECT
P.song_id,
P.country,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY country ORDER BY num_plays DESC) AS
ranking
FROM daily_plays P
)
SELECT
song_id,
country
FROM song_rankings
WHERE ranking = 1;
Question 90. Top artist report medium

Instructio
• Write a query to return the top artist id for every country
Solutio
WITH artist_plays AS (
SELECT
S.artist_id,
P.country,
SUM(num_plays) num_plays
FROM daily_plays P
INNER JOIN song S
ON S.song_id = P.song_id
GROUP BY 1,2
),
artist_ranking AS (
SELECT
artist_id,
country,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY country ORDER BY num_plays DESC) ranking
FROM artist_plays
)
SELECT country, artist_id

FROM artist_ranking
WHERE ranking = 1;
141

RECAP
CONGRATUL ATIONS!
You've finished 90 SQL questions from Single table operations
1. SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, LIMIT;
2. COUNT, GROUP BY HAVING;
3. IN, BETWEEN, LIKE, CASE WHEN
To multi-table operations including
1. INNER JOIN;
2. LEFT JOIN, RIGHT JOIN, FULL OUTER JOIN;
3. UNION, UNION ALL
And advanced Window functions:
1. AVG, MIN/MAX, COUNT, SUM;
2. ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK;
3. NTILE;
4. LAG, LEAD
But what's more important, you've finished this EBook! That is incredible!
And if you are in a good mood 😁 , can I ask you for a favor?
I need to collect testimonials for this book, could you please take a minute and write about your
experience on Twitter?
Please make sure to add the #CrackSQLInterviewBook hashtag and mention me

@DataLeonWei so I will be notified. Share on Twitter
I hope you enjoyed this book, and good luck at your work, job hunting and your new skills in SQL! If
you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line [email protected]
March 2021
Leon Wei
142

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Cracking the SQL

Nervous about your SQL Interview?

90 SQL CODING QUESTIONS & SOLUTIONS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...............................................................................................4

SINGLE TABLE OPERATIONS ..................................................................................28

SINGLE TABLE OPERATIONS ................................................................................100

Hi, thanks for purchasing this SQL ebook!

SQL is a must-know programming language for any data analytics professionals

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leon Ice Climbing at Matanuska

He has interviewed thousands of candidates as a hiring manager or part of a hiring committee.

“I feel so con dent with SQL after practicing here. ”

Why is SQL interview important for a candidate

How is a SQL interview conducted

An interviewer will be able to see everything you type in real-time.

A typical SQL interview process

You are given 3 (simplified) tables:

And you are asked the following questions:

Write a query to return the top 5 songs in the UK yesterday.

2. What columns should I return, a song id, or include a song's name

4. Should we care about the timezone

Write a query to return the top 5 artists in the US and UK yesterday

This question tries to evaluate whether a candidate knows window functions

1. The de nition of 'top.'

3. Situations when there are ties

And here is a sample solution

ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY country ORDER BY SUM(plays) DESC) AS

1. Clarify the question

2. Rule out technical issues rst

3. Whether the drop is a big deal

4. Dive into dat

4.2 external data (might take extra time/resource to obtain

A few follow-up questions for your reference

1. Write a query to nd the top trending artist

Section 1. WINDOW functions based on regular aggregate functions: AVG, MIN/MAX,

AVG(replacement_cost) OVER(PARTITION BY rating) AS avg_cost

MAX(length) OVER(PARTITION BY name) AS max_length

SELECT F.title, C.name, F.length

INNER JOIN film_category FC

INNER JOIN category C

SUM(length) OVER(ORDER BY film_id) AS running_total,

SUM(length) OVER() AS overall,

SUM(length) OVER(ORDER BY film_id) * 100.0 /SUM(length) OVER() AS

Time to complete: ~ 30 -45 mins.

• #58: Percentage of revenue per movie

Section 2: ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK

ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY length DESC) AS row_num

As you can see, the ROW_NUMBER function generates a sequence of integers, starting from 1,

ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY C.name ORDER BY F.length DESC) row_num

INNER JOIN film_category FC

INNER JOIN category C

ORDER BY C.name, row_number;

ROW_NUMBER with OVER and PARTITION BY is a regular pattern that is frequently used in

RANK() OVER(ORDER BY length DESC) AS ranking

RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY C.name ORDER BY F.length DESC) ranking

INNER JOIN film_category FC

INNER JOIN category C

ORDER BY C.name, ranking;

DENSE_RANK() OVER(ORDER BY length DESC) AS ranking