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Pointers and Reference looks similar but there are some difference between both of them.

POINTER

1) Its not necessary to initialize the pointer at the time of declaration. Like

int a = 10;

int *P = &a; //It is not necessary

Another way is :

int a = 10;

int *P;
P = &a;

2) You can create the array of Pointer.

3) You can assign NULL to the pointer like

int *P = NULL; //Valid

4) You can use pointer to pointer.

REFERENCE

1) Its necessary to initialize the Reference at the time of declaration. Like

int &a = 10;

int &a; //Error here but not in case of Pointer.

2) You can not create the Array of reference.

3) You can not assign NULL to the reference like

int &a = NULL; //Error

4) You can not use reference to reference.

In addition to what Bala said,
You can never unseat a reference, so
int x,y;
int &b = x;
b = y; //Compiler error.

On a more philosophical level, think of pointers as things pointing to chunks
of memory, while references are really handles to objects (note that I am using
object in the general sense of the word, not c++ objects).

does amazon ask such trivial questions ??

1. A reference must be initialized when it is created but pointers can be initialized at any time.
2. Once a reference is initialized to an object, it cannot be changed to refer to another object but pointers can be pointed to another object at any time.
3. references cannot be NULL but pointers can.

Fundamentally reference can be taken as const pointer. And it is auto de-referenced.