Expert Indexing in Oracle Database 11g: Maximum Performance for Your Database

Forcing a Table Scan

Another way to avoid index usage is to come at the problem from the opposite direction by demanding a table scan. Use the FULL hint to instruct the optimizer to choose a full table scan instead of an index scan. Here is an example of how you specify the FULL hint:

SQL> select /*+ FULL(e) */ employee_id, last_name       from employees       where last_name like :b1;