Introduction to SELECT

TheSELECT statement is the most commonly used SQL command. It’s used to retrieve data from one or more tables.

Whenever you want to look at data stored in a table — like student names, scores, or results — you’ll use SELECT. It helps you fetch exactly what you need, no matter how large the table is.

The example below shows how to retrieve data from a table using the SELECT statement:

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SELECT column1, column2
FROM table_name;

• SELECT specifies which columns to retrieve.
• FROM specifies which table to retrieve the data from.

The * is a wildcard that means "all columns".

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SELECT * FROM mid_exam;

This query retrieves every column from the mid_exam table.

Let's say you have a table called mid_exam:

You can retrieve student names and their exam scores using:

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SELECT name, exam_score
FROM mid_exam;

This returns:

To check who passed the midterm, use:

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SELECT name, passed
FROM mid_exam;

Now you’ve seen how the SELECT command retrieves specific columns or the entire table.
It’s the first step toward mastering SQL — every data analysis or report starts with a simple SELECT query.