SELECTing top N rows without ROWNUM?

Question

I hope you can help me with my homework :)

We need to build a query that outputs the top N best paid employees.

My version works perfectly fine.
For exam

Answer 1

When you use count(distinct ), equal ranking top salaries will be treated as tie ranks.

select NAME, SALARY
from  STAFF STAFF1
where 3 >= ( select count(distinct STAFF2.SALARY) RANK
               from STAFF STAFF2
              where STAFF2.SALARY >= STAFF1.SALARY)