Which of the following queries correctly finds the second-highest salary without using LIMIT or TOP?

Question

SQL Fundamentals — Hard

Which of the following queries correctly finds the second-highest salary without using LIMIT or TOP?

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is A) SELECT MAX(salary) FROM employees WHERE salary < (SELECT MAX(salary) FROM employees) because it uses a subquery to find the maximum salary and then selects the maximum salary that is less than that. This effectively gives us the second-highest salary without using LIMIT or TOP.