GISCI Practice Exam 2025 – Complete Prep Guide

The command that helps filter results from a database is the WHERE clause. This SQL command is used to specify a condition that must be met for records to be included in the results of a query. By applying the WHERE clause, users can retrieve only the rows that satisfy certain criteria, effectively narrowing down the dataset based on specific conditions, such as equality, range, or patterns.

For example, if you want to find all customers from a specific city in a customer database, you would use a query with the WHERE clause to filter the records to only those customers whose location matches the desired city. This precise filtering capability is essential for retrieving relevant data and reducing the volume of information processed.

Other commands, while they play vital roles in SQL queries, do not specifically focus on filtering results. DISTINCT is used to eliminate duplicate records from the result set, SELECT defines the columns to be returned, and JOIN is utilized to combine rows from two or more tables based on a related column. Each serves its purpose, but the WHERE clause is uniquely positioned to filter the data based on user-defined conditions.