Order by Clause conflicts with distinct in access?

Question

Please help me with this as I have been unable to get past this problem

When trying to execute this statement:

SELECT distinct grade
FROM tblStudents
ORDER BY Val([grade]),grade;

access tells me that ORDER BY clause Val([grade]) conflicts with Distinct

How can I fix this?

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

You cannot order by a column thats not listed in a select distinct statement; if you want grade coerced to an integer;

SELECT DISTINCT Val([grade])
FROM tblStudents
ORDER BY Val([grade]);