Operator that returns true if the value on the left is smaller than the value on the right.

• A. <>
• B. >
• C. <=
• D. <

Answer: (D)

The less-than operator checks if the value on the left is strictly smaller than the value on the right and returns true only in that case. It does not treat equality as true, so a pair with equal values yields false. For example, 3 < 5 is true, while 5 < 5 is false. This is the operator you’d use when you want to select values that are strictly below another value, such as filtering rows with a column less than a threshold. Other operators perform different tests: not equal, greater than, and less than or equal have their own meanings and would yield true in different scenarios.