✅ Basic SQL Interview Questions

1. What is SQL?

SQL (Structured Query Language) is the standard language used to manage and manipulate relational
databases. It allows you to:

Create databases and tables (CREATE)

Insert data (INSERT)

Query data (SELECT)

Update data (UPDATE)

Delete data (DELETE)

It works on databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, SQLite, Oracle, etc.

2. Types of SQL Statements

SQL commands are divided into:

DDL (Data Definition Language): Defines database structure

Examples: CREATE, ALTER, DROP, TRUNCATE

DML (Data Manipulation Language): Manages data within tables

Examples: INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE

DQL (Data Query Language): Queries data

Example: SELECT

DCL (Data Control Language): Controls access to data

Examples: GRANT, REVOKE

TCL (Transaction Control Language): Controls transactions

Examples: COMMIT, ROLLBACK, SAVEPOINT

3. DELETE vs TRUNCATE vs DROP

Feature DELETE TRUNCATE DROP

Deletes data Yes (row by row) Yes (all rows at once) Yes (entire table)

Can rollback Yes (with transaction) No No

Affects schema No No Yes (removes table)

Usage DELETE FROM students WHERE id=1; TRUNCATE TABLE students; DROP TABLE
students;

4. What are Constraints?

Constraints are rules to limit the type of data in a table.

NOT NULL – Value must not be NULL

UNIQUE – All values must be unique

PRIMARY KEY – Uniquely identifies each record

FOREIGN KEY – Links one table to another

CHECK – Validates a condition (CHECK (age >= 18))

DEFAULT – Sets a default value

5. Primary Key vs Foreign Key

Primary Key: Uniquely identifies a row in a table. Only one per table. Cannot be NULL.

Foreign Key: Establishes relationship with another table's primary key.

-- Primary Key Example

CREATE TABLE students (

student_id INT PRIMARY KEY,

name VARCHAR(50)

);

-- Foreign Key Example

CREATE TABLE marks (

mark_id INT,

student_id INT,

FOREIGN KEY (student_id) REFERENCES students(student_id)

);

6. WHERE vs HAVING

WHERE: Filters rows before grouping.

HAVING: Filters groups after grouping.

-- WHERE example

SELECT * FROM employees WHERE salary > 50000;

-- HAVING example

SELECT department, AVG(salary)

FROM employees

GROUP BY department

HAVING AVG(salary) > 50000;

7. GROUP BY Clause

Groups rows by column values, often used with aggregate functions.

SELECT department, COUNT(*) as total_employees

FROM employees

GROUP BY department;

8. CHAR vs VARCHAR

Type Description Example

CHAR Fixed length (padded) CHAR(10) stores "abc" as "abc "

VARCHAR Variable length VARCHAR(10) stores "abc" as "abc"

Use VARCHAR for most flexible storage.

9. Normalization

It is the process of organizing data to reduce redundancy.

1NF: Atomic columns (no multiple values in one column)

2NF: Remove partial dependencies (non-key depends on full key)

3NF: Remove transitive dependencies (non-key depends on another non-key)

Example: A table storing customer name and city multiple times can be split into two tables:
Customers and Cities.

10. Types of Joins

Join Type Description

INNER JOIN Returns only matching rows

LEFT JOIN All rows from left + matching from right

RIGHT JOIN All rows from right + matching from left

FULL JOIN All rows from both tables

SELECT A.name, B.course

FROM students A

INNER JOIN courses B

ON A.id = B.student_id;

⚙ Intermediate SQL Interview Questions – With Detailed Answers

11. What is a Subquery?

A subquery is a query nested inside another SQL query. It can be used in SELECT, FROM, or WHERE
clauses. Example: Find employees earning more than the average salary:

SELECT name, salary

FROM employees
WHERE salary > (SELECT AVG(salary) FROM employees);

🔸 If a subquery depends on the outer query, it is a correlated subquery.

12. What is a View?

A view is a virtual table based on a SQL query. It does not store data but simplifies complex queries.

Example: Create a view of active employees:

CREATE VIEW active_employees AS

SELECT name, department FROM employees WHERE status = 'Active';

To use it:

SELECT * FROM active_employees;

13. What is an Index?

An index speeds up search and retrieval of records in a table.

Clustered Index: Sorts the actual data rows (only one per table)

Non-Clustered Index: Contains a pointer to the data (can be many)

🔹 Example:

CREATE INDEX idx_name ON employees(name);

🔸 Indexes slow down INSERT and UPDATE, so use wisely.

14. Find the Second Highest Salary

SELECT MAX(salary) AS Second_Highest

FROM employees

WHERE salary < (SELECT MAX(salary) FROM employees);

Alternative using LIMIT (MySQL):

SELECT salary FROM employees ORDER BY salary DESC LIMIT 1 OFFSET 1;

15. RANK() vs DENSE_RANK() vs ROW_NUMBER()

Let’s say you have these salaries: 7000, 6000, 6000, 5000.

Function Output

RANK() 1, 2, 2, 4

DENSE_RANK() 1, 2, 2, 3

ROW_NUMBER() 1, 2, 3, 4

SELECT name, salary,

RANK() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC) AS rank,

DENSE_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC) AS dense_rank,

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

FROM employees;

16. Aggregate Functions

Used to perform calculations on data:

SUM() – Total

AVG() – Average

COUNT() – Total number of rows

MAX() – Highest value

MIN() – Lowest value

SELECT department, AVG(salary) FROM employees GROUP BY department;

17. What is a Stored Procedure?

A stored procedure is a saved block of SQL code that can be reused.

CREATE PROCEDURE GetEmployees()

BEGIN

SELECT * FROM employees;

END;

To run:

CALL GetEmployees();

Benefits: Reusability, Performance, Security.

18. UNION vs UNION ALL

Feature UNION UNION ALL

Duplicates Removed Not removed

Performance Slower Faster

SELECT name FROM students

UNION

SELECT name FROM teachers;

19. What are ACID Properties?

Used to ensure reliable transactions in databases.

Atomicity: All steps succeed or none.

Consistency: Database remains valid before and after transaction.

Isolation: Transactions don't interfere with each other.

Durability: Changes remain even after crash.

20. How to Handle NULL Values?

IS NULL / IS NOT NULL to check

COALESCE() to replace nulls

SELECT name, COALESCE(phone, 'Not Available') FROM students;

🔍 Advanced SQL Interview Questions

21. What is a CTE (Common Table Expression)?

Temporary result set used in complex queries.

WITH DepartmentSalary AS (

SELECT department, AVG(salary) AS avg_salary

FROM employees

GROUP BY department

SELECT * FROM DepartmentSalary WHERE avg_salary > 50000;

22. Window Functions

Perform calculations across a set of rows without collapsing them.

SELECT name, department, salary,

RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY department ORDER BY salary DESC) AS rank

FROM employees;

🔹 PARTITION BY is like GROUP BY, but the result is still row-wise.

23. What are Triggers?

Triggers are automatic actions executed in response to events like INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE.

CREATE TRIGGER trg_salary_check

BEFORE INSERT ON employees

FOR EACH ROW

BEGIN

IF NEW.salary < 10000 THEN

SIGNAL SQLSTATE '45000' SET MESSAGE_TEXT = 'Salary too low!';

END IF;

END;
24. Correlated vs Non-Correlated Subqueries

Correlated Subquery: Depends on outer query row

SELECT name FROM employees e

WHERE salary > (SELECT AVG(salary) FROM employees WHERE department = e.department);

Non-Correlated: Runs independently

SELECT name FROM employees WHERE salary > (SELECT AVG(salary) FROM employees);

25. How to Improve SQL Query Performance?

Use indexes on searchable columns.

Avoid SELECT *, select only required columns.

Use EXISTS instead of IN where applicable.

Use LIMIT to avoid full-table scans.

Break large queries into smaller ones.

26. What is a Transaction?

Group of SQL operations that run as one unit.

BEGIN;

UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance - 100 WHERE id = 1;

UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance + 100 WHERE id = 2;

COMMIT;

Use ROLLBACK to undo if there's an error.

27. MERGE Statement

Used for UPSERT (Insert or Update in one query).

MERGE INTO employees AS target

USING new_employees AS source

ON target.id = source.id

WHEN MATCHED THEN

UPDATE SET target.salary = source.salary

WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN

INSERT (id, name, salary) VALUES (source.id, source.name, source.salary);

28. Denormalization

The process of adding redundant data to speed up reads. Use when read speed > storage efficiency.

29. How to Handle Deadlocks

Access tables in same order

Keep transactions short

Use proper indexing to reduce lock time

30. Transpose Rows to Columns

Pivoting data manually:

SELECT

name,

MAX(CASE WHEN subject = 'Math' THEN marks END) AS Math,

MAX(CASE WHEN subject = 'Science' THEN marks END) AS Science

FROM results

GROUP BY name;

✅ Accenture SQL Interview Questions – Detailed with Answers

1. Find the Second Highest Salary

Question:

Write a query to find the second highest salary from an employees table.

Answer:

SELECT MAX(salary) AS Second_Highest

FROM employees

WHERE salary < (SELECT MAX(salary) FROM employees);

Explanation:

First, find the highest salary.

Then, get the max salary less than the highest — this gives second highest.

2. Difference Between WHERE and HAVING

WHERE Clause:

Used before grouping.

Works on rows.

HAVING Clause:

Used after GROUP BY.

Works on groups (aggregates).

Example:
-- WHERE

SELECT * FROM employees WHERE salary > 50000;

-- HAVING

SELECT department, AVG(salary)

FROM employees

GROUP BY department

HAVING AVG(salary) > 50000;

3. What Are Joins? Types of Joins

Joins combine rows from two or more tables using related columns.

Join Type Description

INNER JOIN Only matching rows

LEFT JOIN All left rows + matching right rows

RIGHT JOIN All right rows + matching left rows

FULL OUTER All matching and non-matching rows

Example:

SELECT a.name, b.salary

FROM employees a

INNER JOIN salaries b ON a.emp_id = b.emp_id;

4. Count Employees in Each Department

Question:

Write a query to find the total number of employees per department.

Answer:

SELECT department, COUNT(*) AS total_employees

FROM employees

GROUP BY department;

5. Employees with Same Salary

Question:

Find salaries shared by more than one employee.

Answer:

SELECT salary, COUNT(*) AS num_employees

FROM employees
GROUP BY salary

HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;

6. What Are ACID Properties?

Property Meaning

Atomicity All operations complete or none do

Consistency DB remains valid before and after transactions

Isolation Transactions don't affect each other

Durability Data stays even after crash

7. What is a Foreign Key?

Definition:

A foreign key is a column that creates a relationship between two tables. It points to a primary key in
another table.

Example:

-- Table: students

student_id INT PRIMARY KEY

-- Table: marks

student_id INT,

FOREIGN KEY (student_id) REFERENCES students(student_id)

8. Difference: UNION vs UNION ALL

Feature UNION UNION ALL

Removes duplicates ✅ Yes ❌ No

Performance Slower Faster

-- UNION

SELECT name FROM students

UNION

SELECT name FROM teachers;

-- UNION ALL

SELECT name FROM students

UNION ALL

SELECT name FROM teachers;

✅ Wipro SQL Interview Questions – Detailed with Answers

1. Max Salary Per Department

Question: Get the highest salary for each department.

Answer:

SELECT department, MAX(salary) AS highest_salary

FROM employees

GROUP BY department;

2. DELETE vs TRUNCATE vs DROP

Operation Deletes Data Rollback Possible Deletes Structure

DELETE ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No

TRUNCATE ✅ Yes (all) ❌ No ❌ No

DROP ✅ Yes ❌ No ✅ Yes

3. Normalization

1NF: Atomic values (no multiple values in a cell)

2NF: No partial dependency on a composite key

3NF: No transitive dependency (non-key depending on non-key)

Example: Bad design:

| student_id | name | course1 | course2 | |------------|----------|---------|---------|

Normalized:

Students (student_id, name)

Courses (student_id, course_name)

4. NULL Check Query

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM employees WHERE salary IS NULL;

Explanation: Counts how many rows don’t have a salary value.

5. RANK() vs DENSE_RANK() vs ROW_NUMBER()

Function Use Case Example Output (for ties)

RANK() Gaps in ranks 1, 2, 2, 4

DENSE_RANK() No gaps 1, 2, 2, 3

ROW_NUMBER() No duplicate values 1, 2, 3, 4

SELECT name, salary,

RANK() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC),

DENSE_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC),

 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC)

FROM employees;

✅ Capgemini SQL Interview Questions – Detailed with Answers

1. Find Duplicate Records

SELECT name, COUNT(*)

FROM students

GROUP BY name

HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;

2. What Is a View?

A view is a virtual table built from a SELECT query.

CREATE VIEW high_salaries AS

SELECT name, salary FROM employees WHERE salary > 50000;

To use:

SELECT * FROM high_salaries;

3. What Are Constraints?

Types:

NOT NULL

UNIQUE

PRIMARY KEY

FOREIGN KEY

CHECK

DEFAULT

Example:

CREATE TABLE employees (

id INT PRIMARY KEY,

name VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,

salary INT CHECK (salary > 0)

);

4. What Is an Index?

Improves query speed for SELECT operations.

CREATE INDEX idx_name ON employees(name);

Too many indexes may slow down INSERT/UPDATE operations.

5. Write a Query to Get Last 5 Records

MySQL:

SELECT * FROM employees ORDER BY emp_id DESC LIMIT 5;

6. What Is a Subquery?

A query inside another query.

SELECT name

FROM employees

WHERE salary > (SELECT AVG(salary) FROM employees);

7. Real-World Question (Capgemini 2023):

> Table Sales: salesperson_id, sales_amount

Find the top 2 salespersons by amount

SELECT salesperson_id, sales_amount

FROM (

SELECT salesperson_id, sales_amount,

DENSE_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY sales_amount DESC) as rank

FROM Sales

) AS ranked

WHERE rank <= 2;

🎯 30-Question SQL Mock Test for Placement Interviews

🧠 Section 1: MCQs (1–10)

1. Which SQL command is used to remove a table and all its data?

a) DELETE b) TRUNCATE c) DROP d) REMOVE

✅ Answer: c) DROP

2. What does SELECT COUNT(*) return?

a) Number of columns b) Number of NULL values c) Total number of rows

✅ Answer: c) Total number of rows

3. Which keyword is used to prevent duplicate values?

a) UNIQUE b) DISTINCT
✅ Answer: b) DISTINCT

4. Which type of JOIN returns unmatched rows from the left table?

a) INNER JOIN b) FULL JOIN c) LEFT JOIN

✅ Answer: c) LEFT JOIN

5. What does NULL mean in SQL?

a) 0 b) Empty string c) Unknown or missing value

✅ Answer: c) Unknown or missing value

6. Which function returns the highest value?

a) MAX() b) HIGH() c) TOP()

✅ Answer: a) MAX()

7. What is the default sorting order in ORDER BY?

a) ASC b) DESC

✅ Answer: a) ASC

8. Which clause is used to filter grouped records?

a) WHERE b) HAVING

✅ Answer: b) HAVING

9. Which constraint ensures uniqueness and NOT NULL?

a) PRIMARY KEY b) UNIQUE

✅ Answer: a) PRIMARY KEY

10. Which of these is NOT a valid SQL command?

a) SAVE b) COMMIT

✅ Answer: a) SAVE

🧩 Section 2: Query Writing (11–20)

11. Write a query to display all employees with salary > 50000.

SELECT * FROM employees WHERE salary > 50000;

12. Write a query to find the average salary of each department.

SELECT department, AVG(salary) FROM employees GROUP BY department;

13. Display names of employees who do not have a manager (manager_id is NULL).

SELECT name FROM employees WHERE manager_id IS NULL;

14. Find total number of employees in each department having more than 5 people.
SELECT department, COUNT(*) as total

FROM employees

GROUP BY department

HAVING COUNT(*) > 5;

15. Write a query to find duplicate names in a students table.

SELECT name, COUNT(*)

FROM students

GROUP BY name

HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;

16. Display the top 3 highest paid employees.

SELECT * FROM employees ORDER BY salary DESC LIMIT 3;

17. Write a query to update salary by 10% for all employees in the ‘Sales’ department.

UPDATE employees

SET salary = salary * 1.10

WHERE department = 'Sales';

18. Write a query to delete all records from products table where stock is 0.

DELETE FROM products WHERE stock = 0;

19. Create a table for storing student results.

CREATE TABLE results (

id INT PRIMARY KEY,

name VARCHAR(50),

marks INT

);

20. Write a query to get department-wise maximum salary.

SELECT department, MAX(salary) FROM employees GROUP BY department;

🧠 Section 3: Logic & Scenario-Based (21–30)

21. Get second highest salary using subquery.

SELECT MAX(salary)

FROM employees

WHERE salary < (SELECT MAX(salary) FROM employees);

22. Find employees who joined in the last 6 months.

SELECT * FROM employees

WHERE joining_date >= DATE_SUB(CURDATE(), INTERVAL 6 MONTH);

23. Get number of employees in each role in each department.

SELECT department, role, COUNT(*) FROM employees

GROUP BY department, role;

24. Write a query to show total salary only for departments with average salary > 60000.

SELECT department, SUM(salary)

FROM employees

GROUP BY department

HAVING AVG(salary) > 60000;

25. Display students and their grades:

SELECT name,

CASE

WHEN marks >= 90 THEN 'A'

WHEN marks >= 75 THEN 'B'

WHEN marks >= 60 THEN 'C'

ELSE 'F'

END AS grade

FROM students;

26. Find students who got same marks in multiple subjects.

SELECT student_id, marks, COUNT(*)

FROM marks

GROUP BY student_id, marks

HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;

27. Transpose subject rows to columns for student marks.

SELECT student_id,

MAX(CASE WHEN subject = 'Math' THEN marks END) AS Math,

MAX(CASE WHEN subject = 'Science' THEN marks END) AS Science

FROM marks

GROUP BY student_id;
28. List employee names and their rank by salary.

SELECT name, salary,

RANK() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC) AS rank

FROM employees;

29. What will happen if you delete a row that has a foreign key reference in another table?

❌ Error unless ON DELETE CASCADE is used.

30. How to safely make sure a transaction is complete or rolled back?

BEGIN;

-- do operations

COMMIT; -- or ROLLBACK if error