Question

I am working on creating a SQL query where the result will return a student test score
from the last test that they took. I think that this should be fairly simple but I am just not seeing it.

Here is my test data

Name    Date        Score
John    2/3/2012    94
John    2/14/2012   82
John    2/28/2012   72
Mary    2/3/2012    80
Mary    2/28/2012   71
Ken     2/14/2012   68
Ken     2/14/2012   66

I want the returned result to be

John    2/28/2012   72
Mary    2/28/2012   80
Ken     2/14/2012   66

I appreciate any assistance.

Answer 1

select date, name, score
from temp t1
where date = (select max(date) from temp where t1.name = temp.name)

OR

SELECT a.*
FROM temp a
INNER JOIN 
(
  SELECT name,MAX(date) as max_date 
  FROM temp a
  GROUP BY name
)b ON (b.name = a.name AND a.date=b.max_date)

Here is a sql fiddle with an example

or even this if you have more than one record for each person on a date like you show in your sample data.

SELECT c.name,c.date, MAX(c.score) as max_score
FROM
(
 SELECT a.* 
 FROM temp a
 INNER JOIN 
 (
  SELECT name,MAX(date) as max_date 
  FROM temp a
  GROUP BY name
 )b ON (b.name = a.name AND a.date=b.max_date)
)c
group by c.name,c.date

Sql fiddle with this example