SQL Top Two Scores Per Subject | Dataford Interview Questions

Zeta's assessment dashboard needs to display the strongest student results for every subject. Write a PostgreSQL query that returns the top two students in each subject from the students table.

Requirements

Exclude students whose score is NULL.
Rank students independently within each subject by descending score.
Return at most two students per subject. If scores are tied, use the lower student_id as the deterministic tie-breaker.
Sort the final output by subject, rank, and student ID.

Schema

students

Column	Type	Description
student_idPK	INT	Unique student identifier
student_name	VARCHAR(100)	Student's name
subject	VARCHAR(50)	Assessment subject
score	INT	Assessment score

Your question is SQL Top Two Scores Per Subject. Start with the requirements and the one table in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.

Problem

Zeta's assessment dashboard needs to display the strongest student results for every subject. Write a PostgreSQL query that returns the top two students in each subject from the students table.

Requirements

Exclude students whose score is NULL.
Rank students independently within each subject by descending score.
Return at most two students per subject. If scores are tied, use the lower student_id as the deterministic tie-breaker.
Sort the final output by subject, rank, and student ID.

Schema

students

Column	Type	Description
student_idPK	INT	Unique student identifier
student_name	VARCHAR(100)	Student's name
subject	VARCHAR(50)	Assessment subject
score	INT	Assessment score

Your question is SQL Top Two Scores Per Subject. Start with the requirements and the one table in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.