1.
SELECT basics
How do you retrieve all records from a table named transactions?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM transactions;
2. WHERE clause
How do you find all failed transactions?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM transactions WHERE status = 'FAILED';
Find all users from Mumbai?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM customers WHERE city = 'Mumbai';
3. ORDER BY & LIMIT
How do you find the latest 5 transactions of an account?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM transactions
WHERE account_id = '1234567890'
ORDER BY transaction_date DESC
LIMIT 5;
4. GROUP BY & COUNT
How many transactions has each account made?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT account_id, COUNT(*) AS txn_count
FROM transactions
GROUP BY account_id;
Top 5 accounts with the most transactions?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT account_id, COUNT(*) AS txn_count
FROM transactions
GROUP BY account_id
ORDER BY txn_count DESC
LIMIT 5;
5. DATE filtering
Find failed transactions that happened today?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM transactions
WHERE status = 'FAILED'
AND DATE(transaction_date) = CURDATE();
6. JOINs (basic level)
List customer names with their account balances?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT c.name, a.balance
FROM customers c
JOIN accounts a ON c.customer_id = a.customer_id;
7. UPDATE (read-only use case in interviews)
How to change the city of a customer?
sql
CopyEdit
UPDATE customers
SET city = 'Pune'
WHERE customer_id = 'C1023';
They usually won’t let you update data directly in L1/L2 — this is just to check your
syntax knowledge.
8. Find Duplicates
How to find duplicate mobile numbers in customers table?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT mobile_number, COUNT(*)
FROM customers
GROUP BY mobile_number
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
9. Subqueries
Find accounts with balance more than average?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT *
FROM accounts
WHERE balance > (SELECT AVG(balance) FROM accounts);
10. NULL checks
Find customers without email ID?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM customers WHERE email IS NULL;
Tip for Interview
If they ask:
“How do you debug a transaction issue?”
You can say:
“I check the transaction ID in the database using SELECT, check the status, timestamp, and
error codes if any. Then I check logs using tail -f or grep if needed.”
SQL Questions for Your Role
1. Get customer details whose account balance is below ₹1000 (low balance warning).
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM customers
WHERE balance < 1000;
2. Find the top 5 accounts with the highest number of transactions.
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT account_id, COUNT(*) AS txn_count
FROM transactions
GROUP BY account_id
ORDER BY txn_count DESC
LIMIT 5;
3. Retrieve the last 10 transactions made by a customer with account number
'1234567890'.
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM transactions
WHERE account_id = '1234567890'
ORDER BY transaction_date DESC
LIMIT 10;
4. Count the number of failed transactions today.
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT COUNT(*) AS failed_count
FROM transactions
WHERE status = 'FAILED'
AND DATE(transaction_date) = CURDATE();
7. Show number of transactions grouped by status (e.g., SUCCESS, FAILED, PENDING).
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT status, COUNT(*) AS count
FROM transactions
GROUP BY status;
8. Get customer names who have more than one account.
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT customer_id, COUNT(*) AS total_accounts
FROM accounts
GROUP BY customer_id
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
9. A user claims a transaction was done on ‘2025-07-01’ but it’s not showing. How would
you find it?
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM transactions
WHERE account_id = '1234567890'
AND DATE(transaction_date) = '2025-07-01';
10. Get list of customers whose names start with 'S'.
sql
CopyEdit
SELECT * FROM customers
WHERE name LIKE 'S%';
