These are SQL questions of the kind Adobe actually asks — the patterns reported from Adobe's SQL screens and data/SDE interview rounds. My advice: treat this page as a mock test. Attempt every question on paper first, then reveal. If any answer surprises you, the lesson it comes from is linked right below — go read it, then come back.
Adobe SQL concept questions
What is the difference between EXCEPT and MINUS, and how would you emulate this operation on a database engine/version that supports neither keyword?
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Adobe SQL query questions
Using the same employees table, write a query to show the number of employees and average salary (rounded to 2 decimal places) for each department-city combination, ordered by department then city.
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employees10 rows
| emp_id | name | department | city | salary | hire_date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alice Sharma | Engineering | Mumbai | 95000 | 2019-03-12 |
| 2 | Bob Iyer | Engineering | Mumbai | 72000 | 2020-07-01 |
| 3 | Chitra Rao | Sales | Delhi | 65000 | 2018-11-20 |
| 4 | David Paul | Sales | Delhi | 58000 | 2021-01-15 |
| 5 | Esha Nair | Engineering | Bangalore | 88000 | 2019-09-05 |
| 6 | Farhan Khan | Marketing | Mumbai | 60000 | 2020-02-28 |
| 7 | Gita Menon | Marketing | Mumbai | 60000 | 2022-04-10 |
| 8 | Harish Verma | Sales | Bangalore | 72000 | 2022-06-18 |
| 9 | Amit Verma | Sales | Delhi | 52000 | 2021-08-01 |
| 10 | Isha Kapoor | Engineering | Mumbai | 95000 | 2023-01-10 |
The 'employees' table below was never given a UNIQUE constraint on email, and it already contains some duplicate emails. Write a query to find every email that appears more than once, along with how many times it appears — i.e., the rows that would violate a UNIQUE constraint if one were added now.
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employees6 rows
| emp_id | name | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asha | asha@corp.com |
| 2 | Ravi | ravi@corp.com |
| 3 | Meera | asha@corp.com |
| 4 | Kiran | kiran@corp.com |
| 5 | Zoya | ravi@corp.com |
| 6 | Dev | ravi@corp.com |
How to use this page: Adobe rarely asks a question you've never seen — they ask standard patterns with a twist. Master the pattern in the SQL course lessons, and the twist stops mattering.
Keep practising: SQL Basics, Joins, GROUP BY & HAVING and Subqueries cover what most Adobe SQL rounds test.