SQL Server Online Test

About the test:

The SQL Server Online test uses scenario-based MCQs to evaluate candidates on their knowledge of SQL Server, including their proficiency in writing complex SQL queries, administering SQL Server instances, and managing data. Additionally, the test assesses a candidate's understanding of SQL Server security, performance optimization, and disaster recovery. The test aims to evaluate a candidate's ability to work with SQL Server effectively and efficiently in various real-world scenarios.

Covered skills:

Transactional and relational Database
Database & Database Objects
Synchronization
Database Monitoring & Maintenance
SQL Server Database Security & Troubleshooting

Configurations
Installation
Transaction Logs
Backup & Recovery
Storage Area Network (SAN)

See all covered skills

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9 reasons why

Adaface SQL Server Online Test is the most accurate way to shortlist SQL Server DBAs

Reason #1

Tests for on-the-job skills

The questions for Senior candidates assess advanced topics like:

Query Optimization: Questions evaluate the candidate's ability to optimize queries using indexing, partitioning, and other techniques. This skill is essential for improving database performance and scalability.
Database Design: Candidates are expected to be proficient in database design, normalization, and schema design. This knowledge is crucial for designing efficient and maintainable databases.
Stored Procedures and Functions: Questions assess the candidate's ability to write efficient and reusable stored procedures and functions. This skill is important for reducing the amount of redundant code and improving database performance.
Transactions and Locking: Candidates are evaluated on their understanding of transactions, isolation levels, and locking mechanisms. This knowledge is essential for ensuring data integrity and avoiding concurrency issues.
Performance Tuning: Questions evaluate the candidate's ability to diagnose and resolve performance issues in SQL Server. This skill is important for ensuring that databases can handle large volumes of data and high user traffic.
High Availability and Disaster Recovery: Candidates are expected to be proficient in configuring high availability and disaster recovery solutions such as clustering, replication, and backup/restore. This knowledge is essential for ensuring that critical databases are always available and protected against data loss.
Security and Compliance: Questions assess the candidate's understanding of SQL Server security features and compliance regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA. This knowledge is important for ensuring that databases are secure and compliant with legal and regulatory requirements.
Business Intelligence: Candidates are evaluated on their ability to design and develop business intelligence solutions using SQL Server tools such as Analysis Services, Integration Services, and Reporting Services. This knowledge is important for providing insights and data-driven decision making.
ETL Processes: Questions evaluate the candidate's ability to design and implement Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes using SQL Server Integration Services. This skill is important for integrating data from different sources and transforming it into usable information.
Data Warehousing: Candidates are expected to be proficient in designing and implementing data warehousing solutions using SQL Server tools such as Analysis Services and Integration Services. This knowledge is important for providing a central repository for large amounts of data and enabling data analysis and reporting.

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 Microsoft SQL Server Test will be non-googleable.

🧐 Question
Medium Merge data sources	Solve
Teylor Swift is a developer at your company and is setting up a data flow transformation to merge 2 data sources. 1 source contains item data and the other source contains data regarding the company which made the item. The 2 data sources use SQL Server and have a 3-character CompanyCode column. Both data sources contain an ORDER BY clause to sort the data by CompanyCode in ascending order. Teylor wants to make sure that the Merge Join transformation works without additional transformations. What would you recommend? A: Change the ORDER BY clause on the item source to order by ItemName. B: Set the appropriate SortKeyPosition properties on the data sources. C: Set the IsSorted property on both data sources. D: Change the Merge Join transformation to a Merge transformation.
Medium Multi Select	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many rows does the following SQL query return?
Easy Select & IN	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 With, AVG & SUM	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many tuples does the following query return?

	🧐 Question	🔧 Skill
	Medium Merge data sources	2 mins SQL Server	Solve
Teylor Swift is a developer at your company and is setting up a data flow transformation to merge 2 data sources. 1 source contains item data and the other source contains data regarding the company which made the item. The 2 data sources use SQL Server and have a 3-character CompanyCode column. Both data sources contain an ORDER BY clause to sort the data by CompanyCode in ascending order. Teylor wants to make sure that the Merge Join transformation works without additional transformations. What would you recommend? A: Change the ORDER BY clause on the item source to order by ItemName. B: Set the appropriate SortKeyPosition properties on the data sources. C: Set the IsSorted property on both data sources. D: Change the Merge Join transformation to a Merge transformation.
	Medium Multi Select	2 mins SQL	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many rows does the following SQL query return?
	Easy Select & IN	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 With, AVG & SUM	2 mins SQL	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many tuples does the following query return?

	🧐 Question	🔧 Skill	💪 Difficulty	⌛ Time
	Merge data sources	SQL Server	Medium	2 mins	Solve
Teylor Swift is a developer at your company and is setting up a data flow transformation to merge 2 data sources. 1 source contains item data and the other source contains data regarding the company which made the item. The 2 data sources use SQL Server and have a 3-character CompanyCode column. Both data sources contain an ORDER BY clause to sort the data by CompanyCode in ascending order. Teylor wants to make sure that the Merge Join transformation works without additional transformations. What would you recommend? A: Change the ORDER BY clause on the item source to order by ItemName. B: Set the appropriate SortKeyPosition properties on the data sources. C: Set the IsSorted property on both data sources. D: Change the Merge Join transformation to a Merge transformation.
	Multi Select	SQL	Medium	2 mins	Solve
Consider the following SQL table: How many rows does the following SQL query return?
	Select & IN	SQL	Easy	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?
	With, AVG & SUM	SQL	Medium	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 Microsoft SQL Server 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 Microsoft SQL Server 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 & comparative results

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 roles can I use the Microsoft SQL Server Test for?

SQL Server DBA
MS SQL Server Database Admin

What topics are covered in the SQL Server Online Test?

Windows Mode, Mixed Mode

Two Authentication Modes

SQL Profiler

Recursive Stored Procedure

Local and Global Temporary Tables

CHECK Constraint

Sub Query

SQL Server Agent

Scheduled Tasks

COALESCE

FLOOR Function

Locks

SIGN Function

Used to execute a batch of SQL code when insert or update or delete commands are executed against a table

Trigger

IDENTITY Column

Bulkcopy

UNION

UNION ALL

Stored Procedure

Dynamic SQL

Collation

SET NOCOUNT ON/OFF Statement

SQL Server creates magic tables to hold the values during the DML operations

Magic Tables

SUBSTR

CHARINDEX

FOR Clause

Varchar and Nvarchar Types

GETDATE and SYSDATETIME

Used to extract sample of rows randomly that are all necessary for the application

TABLESAMPLE

Used to store XML documents in the SQL Server database

XML Datatype

Change Data Capture

CDC

An attack by malicious users in which malicious code can be inserted into strings that can be passed to an instance of SQL server for parsing and execution

SQL Injection

Filtered Index

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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

What is the SQL Server online test?

The SQL Server online test is a skills assessment that evaluates a candidate's knowledge and skills related to Microsoft SQL Server, which is a relational database management system used for storing and retrieving data. The test typically includes questions on SQL Server features, database design, SQL queries etc.

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.