LIMIT & OFFSET SQL practice problemEasyVerified answer

Skip Rows with OFFSET

Return employees 4 through 6 (skip the first 3).

  • CTEs
  • Sorting
  • Top-N

Interview brief

Understand the request

HR operations analyst The second page of the employee directory starts after the first 3 records.

Skip the first 5 employees by employee_id and return the next 5. Show first_name, last_name, salary, employee_id.

Return

  • Return all employee columns.

Constraints

  • Use OFFSET 3 to skip the first page.

Data you will use

Review the relevant tables before deciding how to join, filter, or aggregate them.

employees

  • first_nameTEXT
  • last_nameTEXT
  • salaryDECIMAL
  • employee_idINTEGER

Hints, when you need them

Open one clue at a time so you still do the reasoning.

Hint 1

OFFSET M skips M rows from the start of the (ordered) result; LIMIT N then keeps the next N.

Hint 2

Without ORDER BY, 'skip the first 5' has no defined meaning — the engine may give different rows each run.

Hint 3

ORDER BY employee_id LIMIT 5 OFFSET 5

Verified SQL answer

Attempt the problem first, then compare structure and reasoning—not just syntax.

Reveal solution and explanation
SELECT first_name, last_name, salary, employee_id FROM employees ORDER BY employee_id LIMIT 5 OFFSET 5;

Why this works

OFFSET is the foundation of pagination. The cost: the engine must produce and discard the first M rows before returning anything. For small offsets this is fine; for very large offsets it gets expensive (covered in Q14 and Q22).

Expected result

Use this output to verify values, aliases, ordering, and row count.

first_namelast_namesalaryemployee_id
LisaDavis580006
TomWilson620007
AmyTaylor780008
ChrisAnderson680009
EmmaThomas5200010

Learn the concepts behind this answer

Strengthen your understanding with these targeted learning topics: