Which clause can be used alongside SELECT to filter the data returned?

Using the WHERE clause alongside SELECT is essential for filtering data because it specifies conditions that must be met for rows to be included in the results of a query. This allows you to retrieve only the data that is relevant to your needs, based on specific criteria.

For example, if you have a table of customers and you only want to retrieve records for customers in a particular city, you would use the WHERE clause to specify that condition. The result set will then include only those rows that fulfill the criteria defined in the WHERE clause.

The other options serve different purposes in SQL. The GROUP BY clause is used to group rows that have the same values in specified columns into summary rows, which is not filtering but rather aggregating. The JOIN clause is utilized to combine rows from two or more tables based on a related column, which does not inherently filter the data. The ORDER BY clause sorts the result set in a specified order but does not filter the data returned. Thus, the WHERE clause is uniquely suited for filtering based on specified conditions.