GATE 2026 DA – Question 60

Database Management and Warehousing · Relational algebra, tuple calculus and SQL · 2 marks · Numerical answer

Let Account be a relation as shown.

AccNo	Balance
A1	5000
A2	5000
A3	10000
A4	15000
A5	18000

Consider the given SQL query.

SELECT AccNo FROM Account AS A
WHERE (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Account AS B
       WHERE A.Balance < B.Balance)
   >= (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Account AS C
       WHERE A.Balance > C.Balance)

The number of rows returned by the SQL query is __________ . (*Answer in integer*)

Practise this question in The GATE Grind →

Show answer and explanation

Correct answer: 3

Explanation

For each account the query compares the number of accounts with a larger balance to the number with a smaller balance and keeps the account when the first number is at least the second. A1 and A2 (5000): 3 larger, 0 smaller, kept. A3 (10000): 2 larger (15000, 18000) and 2 smaller (5000, 5000), kept because $2 \ge 2$. A4 (15000): 1 larger and 3 smaller, rejected. A5 (18000): 0 larger and 4 smaller, rejected. So 3 rows are returned.