title: Understanding the results of Execute Explain Plan in Oracle SQL Developer
body: <p>I'm trying to optimize a query but don't quite understand some of the information returned from <strong>Explain Plan</strong>. Can anyone tell me the significance of the OPTIONS and COST columns? In the OPTIONS column, I only see the word FULL. In the COST column, I can deduce that a lower cost means a faster query. But what exactly does the cost value represent and what is an acceptable threshold?</p>