How to select top N from a table

Question

I have to select the top 25 records from a table according to the column Num.

There are two issues. First, the table is not sorted by Num.

Answer 1

select top 25 *
from your_table
order by Num asc

On SQL Server that would select the 25 first records starting from the lowest value of Num. If you need the highest, use "desc" instead of "asc".