Questa è una classica domanda da intervista.
In Ms SQL 2005+ puoi utilizzare ROW_NUMBER() parola chiave e hanno il predicato ROW_NUMBER =n
USE AdventureWorks;
GO
WITH OrderedOrders AS
(
SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderDate,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY OrderDate) AS 'RowNumber'
FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader
)
SELECT *
FROM OrderedOrders
WHERE RowNumber = 5;
In SQL2000 potresti fare qualcosa come
SELECT Top 1 *FROM
[tblApplications]
where [ApplicationID] In
(
SELECT TOP 5 [ApplicationID]
FROM [dbo].[tblApplications]
order by applicationId Desc
)