To understand this SQL statement, the user should know about the LPAD function, which pads a string with a specified character until the string reaches a specified length. In this case, the salary column will be padded with asterisks (*) until it is 10 characters long.
The WHERE clause restricts the query to employees with an EMP_ID of 1001.
Assuming the employee with EMP_ID 1001 has a salary of 17000, the LPAD function will pad the salary with asterisks () until it has a length of 10 characters, resulting in the string "***17000". Therefore, the correct answer is: