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Home/Questions/SQL/Describe strategies for optimizing a slow-running query on a massive dataset.

Describe strategies for optimizing a slow-running query on a massive dataset.

SQLmedium0.4 min read

Reviewed by Aditya Kumar · Last reviewed 2026-03-24

**Architectural Logic**: Optimize in order—partition pruning, clustering, query rewrite, materialization, approximate methods. **Strategies**: (1) Partition pruning—predicate on partition column. (2) Clustering/sort keys—colocate related data. (3) Query rewrite—avoid SELECT *;...

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Frequency
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Asked at 1 company
Category
487
questions in SQL
Difficulty Split
130E|271M|86H
in this category
Total Bank
1,863
across 7 categories
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Key Concepts Tested
partition
Expert Answer
81 words

Architectural Logic: Optimize in order—partition pruning, clustering, query rewrite, materialization, approximate methods. Strategies: (1) Partition pruning—predicate on partition column. (2) Clustering/sort keys—colocate related data. (3) Query rewrite—avoid SELECT *; push filters; reduce shuffle. (4) Materialized views—pre-aggregate common patterns. (5) Approximate—sampling, HyperLogLog when exact not needed. (6) Incremental—process only changed data. (7) Scale compute; tune parallelism. Why Order: Pruning has highest impact; materialization helps repeated queries. Scalability: Profile first (EXPLAIN, query stats); iterate. Cost: Each strategy reduces compute or storage; measure before/after.

⚡
Pro Tip

Red Flag: Optimizing without profiling—guessing. Pro-Move: Say 'I'd run EXPLAIN first'; identify top bottleneck; mention specific technique (e.g., 'added partition filter, 10x improvement').

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