You have a table named 'CUSTOMER ORDERS with columns customer id', order date' , and 'order amount'. You want to retrieve the top 5 customers who placed orders on a specific date ('2023-01-15') based

Question

Options

• ASELECT customer_id, AS total_amount FROM CUSTOMER_ORDERS WHERE order_date =
• BSELECT customer_id, AS total_amount FROM CUSTOMER_ORDERS GROUP BY customer_id
• CSELECT customer_id, AS total_amount FROM CUSTOMER_ORDERS WHERE order_date =
• DSELECT customer_id, order_amount FROM CUSTOMER_ORDERS WHERE order_date = '2023-
• E`sql SELECT TOP 5 customer_id, AS total_amount FROM CUSTOMER_ORDERS WHERE

• A
  76% (39)
• B
  2% (1)
• C
  2% (1)
• D
  6% (3)
• E
  14% (7)

Explanation

Option A is correct because it combines all required elements: a WHERE order_date = '2023-01-15' clause to filter by the specific date, SUM(order_amount) AS total_amount to aggregate each customer's total, GROUP BY customer_id to collapse rows per customer, ORDER BY total_amount DESC to rank by highest spender, and LIMIT 5 (or equivalent) to return only the top 5.

Why the distractors fail:

• B omits the WHERE date filter, so it aggregates across all dates, not just 2023-01-15.
• C appears structurally similar to A but is missing either the ORDER BY or LIMIT clause, meaning results aren't ranked or capped at 5.
• D selects raw order_amount without SUM() or GROUP BY, returning individual order rows rather than aggregated customer totals.
• E uses SELECT TOP 5 (SQL Server syntax) but lacks GROUP BY, so the aggregation is broken and results are undefined.

Memory tip: Think of the query as a pipeline - filter first (WHERE), group and sum (GROUP BY + SUM), rank (ORDER BY DESC), trim (LIMIT 5). Any option missing a step in this pipeline will produce wrong results.

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