title: How to force oracle to use index range scan?
body: <p>I have a series of extremely similar queries that I run against a table of 1.4 billion records (with indexes), the only problem is that at least 10% of those queries take > 100x more time to execute than others. </p>
  
  <p>I ran an explain plan and noticed that the for the fast queries (roughly 90%) Oracle is using an index range scan; on the slow ones, it's using a full index scan.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to force Oracle to do an index range scan?</p>