Excel & SQL Test

About the test:

The Excel SQL Test uses scenario-based MCQs to evaluate candidates on their proficiency in using Microsoft Excel and SQL for data analysis and reporting. The test assesses candidates' ability to query and analyze data using SQL, import and export data between Excel and SQL databases, and create and manage Excel reports and dashboards. The test focuses on data modeling, database design, data validation and normalization, SQL functions and procedures, data visualization, and data manipulation.

Covered skills:

Data types
Math formulas (SUM; MIN; AVG; SUMIFS)
Analyzing data (Pivots; Filters;)
Pivot Charts and Tables
Conditional formatting
Data manipulation
Error handling
Sparklines and data bars
Automation with macros
Formula-based conditional formatting
The Relational Model
SQL Functions
Data Query Language
SQL Filtering / WHERE Statement
Indexes
SQL JOINS
Date Filtering and Timestamps
Operator Precedence
GROUP BY
Bottom-Up Design
Normalization
Multi-Table SELECT
Backup Strategies
Data Types
Sharding
Backups
Distributed vs Centralized Databases
SQL Injections

Basic formulas (MATCH; INDEX)
Advanced formulas (IF; VLOOKUP; HLOOKUP)
Visualizing data (Charts; Graphs)
Lookup & Reference
Data summarization
Working with dates and times
Inserting and formatting tables
3-Data Consolidation
3-Data Consolidation
Forms and actions
SQL Basics
Data Modification Language
CRUD
Subqueries
3 Valued Logic
Window Functions
Aggregate Functions
ORDER BY
Top-Down Design
Entity Relationship Diagram
Database Types
Permission Management
Transactions
Views
Replication
Vertical + Horizontal Scaling
Database Security
Access Control

See all covered skills

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9 reasons why

Adaface Excel & SQL Test is the most accurate way to shortlist SQL Data Analysts

Reason #1

Tests for on-the-job skills

The Excel & SQL Test helps recruiters and hiring managers identify qualified candidates from a pool of resumes and take objective hiring decisions. It reduces the administrative overhead of interviewing too many candidates and saves expensive engineering time by filtering out unqualified candidates.

You can use the Adaface Excel & SQL Test to screen candidates for the following roles:

SQL Data Analyst
Business Intelligence Analyst
Database Administrator
Financial Analyst
Operations Analyst
Business Analyst

Reason #2

No trick questions

Traditional assessment tools use trick questions and puzzles for the screening, which creates a lot of frustration among candidates about having to go through irrelevant screening assessments.

The main reason we started Adaface is that traditional pre-employment assessment platforms are not a fair way for companies to evaluate candidates. At Adaface, our mission is to help companies find great candidates by assessing on-the-job skills required for a role.

Why we started Adaface ->

Reason #3

Non-googleable questions

We have a very high focus on the quality of questions that test for on-the-job skills. Every question is non-googleable and we have a very high bar for the level of subject matter experts we onboard to create these questions. We have crawlers to check if any of the questions are leaked online. If/ when a question gets leaked, we get an alert. We change the question for you & let you know.

These are just a small sample from our library of 10,000+ questions. The actual questions on this Excel & SQL Test will be non-googleable.

🧐 Question
Medium MATCH INDEX LOOKUP	Solve
Some friends live in adjacent apartments in a building in Central Perk, New York. We want to write a function to search the apartment number by name. Which of the following functions should we use?
Medium Organization data Data transformation	Solve
We have two Excel files with organization data. One file has Organization ID and Organization Name fields, whereas the second file has Organization ID, Organization Name and Country fields. We wrote a query to retrieve the data from both files. Here’s a sample of the data retrieved: We want to ensure Organization ID field is unique. Which of the following is the ideal solution that ensures Organization ID field is unique while retaining Country data? A: Select the Organization ID and Country columns, and then click Keep Duplicates. B: Select the Organization ID and Country columns, and then click Remove Duplicates. C: Use Group BY function to group the rows by Organization ID. Specify output columns for Organization Name and Country using MAX operation. D: Select Organization ID column and then click Remove Duplicates. Then specify output columns for Country using MAX operation.
Medium Student scores Data formatting	Solve
Here’s a sample Excel data source: Here’s the expected data format: Which of the following is the correct way to transform the data from the query editor to achieve the result? A: Columns to Select: Student Only B: Columns to Select: Student and Student ID C: Columns to Select: Primary and Secondary D: Command to Use: Pivot Column E: Command to Use: Reverse Rows F: Command to Use: Unpivot Columns
Medium VLOOKUP blood donor	Solve
We are looking to find the contact number of the only blood donor with blood group O-. Which function should we use to look up the correct contact number? Here's the documentation for VLOOKUP: =VLOOKUP(lookup value, range containing the lookup value, the column number in the range containing the return value, Approximate match (TRUE) or Exact match (FALSE)). A: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 3, TRUE) B: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 3, FALSE) C: =VLOOKUP("O-", D1:D10, 4) D: =VLOOKUP("O-", D1:D10, 3) E: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 4, TRUE) F: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 4, FALSE) G: =VLOOKUP("Kane", A1:E10, 4)
Medium Multi Select JOIN GROUP BY	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many rows does the following SQL query return?
Medium nth highest sales Nested queries User Defined Functions	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: Which of the following SQL commands will find the ‘nth highest Sales’ if it exists (returns null otherwise)?
Medium Select & IN Nested queries	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: Which of the following SQL queries would return the year when neither a football or cricket winner was chosen?
Medium Sorting Ubers Nested queries Join Comparison operators	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: What will be the first two tuples resulting from the following SQL command?
Hard With, AVG & SUM MAX() MIN() Aggregate functions	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many tuples does the following query return?

	🧐 Question	🔧 Skill
	Medium MATCH INDEX LOOKUP	2 mins Excel	Solve
Some friends live in adjacent apartments in a building in Central Perk, New York. We want to write a function to search the apartment number by name. Which of the following functions should we use?
	Medium Organization data Data transformation	3 mins Excel	Solve
We have two Excel files with organization data. One file has Organization ID and Organization Name fields, whereas the second file has Organization ID, Organization Name and Country fields. We wrote a query to retrieve the data from both files. Here’s a sample of the data retrieved: We want to ensure Organization ID field is unique. Which of the following is the ideal solution that ensures Organization ID field is unique while retaining Country data? A: Select the Organization ID and Country columns, and then click Keep Duplicates. B: Select the Organization ID and Country columns, and then click Remove Duplicates. C: Use Group BY function to group the rows by Organization ID. Specify output columns for Organization Name and Country using MAX operation. D: Select Organization ID column and then click Remove Duplicates. Then specify output columns for Country using MAX operation.
	Medium Student scores Data formatting	2 mins Excel	Solve
Here’s a sample Excel data source: Here’s the expected data format: Which of the following is the correct way to transform the data from the query editor to achieve the result? A: Columns to Select: Student Only B: Columns to Select: Student and Student ID C: Columns to Select: Primary and Secondary D: Command to Use: Pivot Column E: Command to Use: Reverse Rows F: Command to Use: Unpivot Columns
	Medium VLOOKUP blood donor	2 mins Excel	Solve
We are looking to find the contact number of the only blood donor with blood group O-. Which function should we use to look up the correct contact number? Here's the documentation for VLOOKUP: =VLOOKUP(lookup value, range containing the lookup value, the column number in the range containing the return value, Approximate match (TRUE) or Exact match (FALSE)). A: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 3, TRUE) B: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 3, FALSE) C: =VLOOKUP("O-", D1:D10, 4) D: =VLOOKUP("O-", D1:D10, 3) E: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 4, TRUE) F: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 4, FALSE) G: =VLOOKUP("Kane", A1:E10, 4)
	Medium Multi Select JOIN GROUP BY	2 mins SQL	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many rows does the following SQL query return?
	Medium nth highest sales Nested queries User Defined Functions	3 mins SQL	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: Which of the following SQL commands will find the ‘nth highest Sales’ if it exists (returns null otherwise)?
	Medium Select & IN Nested queries	3 mins SQL	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: Which of the following SQL queries would return the year when neither a football or cricket winner was chosen?
	Medium Sorting Ubers Nested queries Join Comparison operators	3 mins SQL	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: What will be the first two tuples resulting from the following SQL command?
	Hard With, AVG & SUM MAX() MIN() Aggregate functions	2 mins SQL	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many tuples does the following query return?

	🧐 Question	🔧 Skill	💪 Difficulty	⌛ Time
	MATCH INDEX LOOKUP	Excel	Medium	2 mins	Solve
Some friends live in adjacent apartments in a building in Central Perk, New York. We want to write a function to search the apartment number by name. Which of the following functions should we use?
	Organization data Data transformation	Excel	Medium	3 mins	Solve
We have two Excel files with organization data. One file has Organization ID and Organization Name fields, whereas the second file has Organization ID, Organization Name and Country fields. We wrote a query to retrieve the data from both files. Here’s a sample of the data retrieved: We want to ensure Organization ID field is unique. Which of the following is the ideal solution that ensures Organization ID field is unique while retaining Country data? A: Select the Organization ID and Country columns, and then click Keep Duplicates. B: Select the Organization ID and Country columns, and then click Remove Duplicates. C: Use Group BY function to group the rows by Organization ID. Specify output columns for Organization Name and Country using MAX operation. D: Select Organization ID column and then click Remove Duplicates. Then specify output columns for Country using MAX operation.
	Student scores Data formatting	Excel	Medium	2 mins	Solve
Here’s a sample Excel data source: Here’s the expected data format: Which of the following is the correct way to transform the data from the query editor to achieve the result? A: Columns to Select: Student Only B: Columns to Select: Student and Student ID C: Columns to Select: Primary and Secondary D: Command to Use: Pivot Column E: Command to Use: Reverse Rows F: Command to Use: Unpivot Columns
	VLOOKUP blood donor	Excel	Medium	2 mins	Solve
We are looking to find the contact number of the only blood donor with blood group O-. Which function should we use to look up the correct contact number? Here's the documentation for VLOOKUP: =VLOOKUP(lookup value, range containing the lookup value, the column number in the range containing the return value, Approximate match (TRUE) or Exact match (FALSE)). A: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 3, TRUE) B: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 3, FALSE) C: =VLOOKUP("O-", D1:D10, 4) D: =VLOOKUP("O-", D1:D10, 3) E: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 4, TRUE) F: =VLOOKUP("O-", A1:E10, 4, FALSE) G: =VLOOKUP("Kane", A1:E10, 4)
	Multi Select JOIN GROUP BY	SQL	Medium	2 mins	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many rows does the following SQL query return?
	nth highest sales Nested queries User Defined Functions	SQL	Medium	3 mins	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: Which of the following SQL commands will find the ‘nth highest Sales’ if it exists (returns null otherwise)?
	Select & IN Nested queries	SQL	Medium	3 mins	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: Which of the following SQL queries would return the year when neither a football or cricket winner was chosen?
	Sorting Ubers Nested queries Join Comparison operators	SQL	Medium	3 mins	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: What will be the first two tuples resulting from the following SQL command?
	With, AVG & SUM MAX() MIN() Aggregate functions	SQL	Hard	2 mins	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many tuples does the following query return?

Reason #4

1200+ customers in 75 countries

With Adaface, we were able to optimise our initial screening process by upwards of 75%, freeing up precious time for both hiring managers and our talent acquisition team alike!

Brandon Lee, Head of People, Love, Bonito

Reason #5

Designed for elimination, not selection

The most important thing while implementing the pre-employment Excel & SQL Test in your hiring process is that it is an elimination tool, not a selection tool. In other words: you want to use the test to eliminate the candidates who do poorly on the test, not to select the candidates who come out at the top. While they are super valuable, pre-employment tests do not paint the entire picture of a candidate’s abilities, knowledge, and motivations. Multiple easy questions are more predictive of a candidate's ability than fewer hard questions. Harder questions are often "trick" based questions, which do not provide any meaningful signal about the candidate's skillset.

Reason #6

1 click candidate invites

Email invites: You can send candidates an email invite to the Excel & SQL Test from your dashboard by entering their email address.

Public link: You can create a public link for each test that you can share with candidates.

API or integrations: You can invite candidates directly from your ATS by using our pre-built integrations with popular ATS systems or building a custom integration with your in-house ATS.

Reason #7

Detailed scorecards & benchmarks

Reason #8

High completion rate

Adaface tests are conversational, low-stress, and take just 25-40 mins to complete.

This is why Adaface has the highest test-completion rate (86%), which is more than 2x better than traditional assessments.

Reason #9

Advanced Proctoring

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What topics are covered in the Excel & SQL Test?

Data types

Basic formulas (MATCH; INDEX)

Math formulas (SUM; MIN; AVG; SUMIFS)

Advanced formulas (IF; VLOOKUP; HLOOKUP)

Analyzing data (Pivots; Filters;)

Visualizing data (Charts; Graphs)

Pivot Charts and Tables

Lookup & Reference

Conditional formatting

Data summarization

Data manipulation

Working with dates and times

Error handling

Inserting and formatting tables

Sparklines and data bars

3-Data Consolidation

Automation with macros

3-Data Consolidation

Formula-based conditional formatting

Forms and actions

The Relational Model

SQL Basics

SQL Functions

Data Modification Language

Data Query Language

CRUD

SQL Filtering / WHERE Statement

Subqueries

Indexes

3 Valued Logic

SQL JOINS

Window Functions

Date Filtering and Timestamps

Aggregate Functions

Operator Precedence

ORDER BY

GROUP BY

Top-Down Design

Bottom-Up Design

Entity Relationship Diagram

Normalization

Database Types

Multi-Table SELECT

Permission Management

Backup Strategies

Transactions

Data Types

Views

Sharding

Replication

Backups

Vertical + Horizontal Scaling

Distributed vs Centralized Databases

Database Security

SQL Injections

Access Control

Preview this test

View sample scorecard

The hiring managers felt that through the technical questions that they asked during the panel interviews, they were able to tell which candidates had better scores, and differentiated with those who did not score as well. They are highly satisfied with the quality of candidates shortlisted with the Adaface screening.

85%

reduction in screening time

View Full Case Study

FAQs

Can I combine multiple skills into one custom assessment?

Yes, absolutely. Custom assessments are set up based on your job description, and will include questions on all must-have skills you specify.

Do you have any anti-cheating or proctoring features in place?

We have the following anti-cheating features in place:

Non-googleable questions
IP proctoring
Web proctoring
Webcam proctoring
Plagiarism detection
Secure browser

Read more about the proctoring features.

How do I interpret test scores?

The primary thing to keep in mind is that an assessment is an elimination tool, not a selection tool. A skills assessment is optimized to help you eliminate candidates who are not technically qualified for the role, it is not optimized to help you find the best candidate for the role. So the ideal way to use an assessment is to decide a threshold score (typically 55%, we help you benchmark) and invite all candidates who score above the threshold for the next rounds of interview.

What experience level can I use this test for?

Each Adaface assessment is customized to your job description/ ideal candidate persona (our subject matter experts will pick the right questions for your assessment from our library of 10000+ questions). This assessment can be customized for any experience level.

Does every candidate get the same questions?

Yes, it makes it much easier for you to compare candidates. Options for MCQ questions and the order of questions are randomized. We have anti-cheating/ proctoring features in place. In our enterprise plan, we also have the option to create multiple versions of the same assessment with questions of similar difficulty levels.