📝 Practice Test 2 — Domain 3 & 4 Focus#

Time: 130 minutes | Questions: 65 | Domain: High-Performing & Cost-Optimized Architectures

Question 1#

A company runs a serverless application using Lambda functions that process data from an SQS queue. The processing time for each message is about 30 seconds. What is the maximum timeout that should be configured for the Lambda function?

A) 15 seconds B) 30 seconds C) 1 minute D) 15 minutes

Question 2#

A company needs to reduce its monthly EC2 costs. They have 50 EC2 instances running 24/7 for production workloads. Which option provides the LARGEST discount?

A) On-Demand instances B) Spot Instances C) Compute Savings Plans (3-year, all upfront) D) Scheduled Reserved Instances

Question 3#

A web application uses an ALB to distribute traffic to EC2 instances. The application must support WebSocket connections for real-time features. Which load balancer type supports this?

A) Network Load Balancer B) Application Load Balancer C) Classic Load Balancer D) Gateway Load Balancer

Question 4#

A company needs a file system that can be mounted by hundreds of EC2 instances simultaneously across multiple AZs. Which storage solution should be used?

A) S3 B) EBS C) EFS D) Instance Store

Question 5#

An application stores data in DynamoDB and needs single-digit millisecond latency for reads. Some queries are accessed very frequently (hot keys). Which solution improves performance and reduces cost?

A) Add a Global Secondary Index B) Enable DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) C) Switch to On-Demand capacity mode D) Increase RCUs

Question 6#

A company needs to serve static content (images, CSS, JavaScript) to a global user base with low latency. What is the MOST cost-effective solution?

A) Store content in S3 and use CloudFront as a CDN B) Store content on EC2 instances behind an ALB C) Use EFS and mount it to EC2 instances in each region D) Store content in multiple regional S3 buckets

Question 7#

Which services can be used to decouple components of a microservices architecture? (Select TWO)

A) SQS B) SNS C) EC2 Auto Scaling D) S3 E) CloudFront

Question 8#

A company uses RDS for MySQL with 500 GB of storage. They need to reduce storage costs for historical data that is rarely accessed. What should they do?

A) Delete old data manually B) Create a read replica and delete old data from the primary C) Migrate to Aurora and use Aurora Auto Scaling D) Use S3 to archive old data and remove it from RDS

Question 9#

A company has EC2 instances that must use dedicated physical servers for compliance. Which purchasing option should be used?

A) Reserved Instances B) Spot Instances C) Dedicated Hosts D) On-Demand Instances

Question 10#

A solutions architect needs to design a cost-effective architecture for a batch processing workload that runs for 2 hours every night. The workload can be interrupted and resumed. Which compute option is MOST cost-effective?

A) On-Demand EC2 instances B) Reserved Instances C) Spot Instances D) Dedicated Hosts

Question 11#

Which service provides a fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse?

A) Amazon RDS B) Amazon DynamoDB C) Amazon Redshift D) Amazon Aurora

Question 12#

A company needs to automatically scale its ECS Fargate service based on CPU utilization. What should be configured?

A) EC2 Auto Scaling group with a scaling policy B) Application Auto Scaling with a target tracking policy C) ECS Cluster Auto Scaling D) Lambda function to scale manually

Question 13#

A company is using NAT Gateways for internet access from private subnets. The NAT Gateway is processing 10 TB of data per month. What is a MORE cost-effective alternative for accessing S3?

A) VPN connection B) Internet Gateway C) VPC Gateway Endpoint for S3 D) Direct Connect

Question 14#

A company runs a critical database on RDS and needs automatic failover to a standby in another AZ. Which feature should be enabled?

A) Read Replicas B) Multi-AZ C) Automated Backups D) Performance Insights

Question 15#

A web application serves users globally and needs fixed IP addresses for whitelisting by third-party APIs. Which AWS service provides static IP addresses for the application?

A) CloudFront B) Global Accelerator C) Route53 D) ALB

Question 16#

A company serves a global user base and wants to improve the performance of their dynamic API. They currently use an ALB in a single region. Which service provides the LOWEST latency for global users?

A) Amazon CloudFront with the ALB as origin B) Amazon Route53 with latency-based routing C) AWS Global Accelerator with the ALB as endpoint D) Deploy ALBs in multiple regions with Route53 geolocation

Question 17#

An application reads from a DynamoDB table with frequent queries on the same set of partition keys (hot keys). The table uses on-demand capacity. Read latency is high during peak traffic. What is the MOST effective solution?

A) Switch to provisioned capacity with auto scaling B) Enable DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) C) Add a Local Secondary Index D) Increase the table’s read capacity units

Question 18#

A company needs to cache database query results to reduce load on their RDS instance. The cached data must be durable and survive a cache cluster failure. Which ElastiCache configuration should be used?

A) Redis with Multi-AZ with automatic failover B) Memcached with multiple nodes C) Redis single node D) Memcached with auto discovery

Question 19#

A company runs a high-traffic e-commerce platform on EC2 instances behind an ALB. They need to reduce latency for frequently accessed product data. What should be configured?

A) Increase the EC2 instance size B) Add an ElastiCache cluster in front of the database C) Use an NLB instead of ALB D) Enable ALB stickiness

Question 20#

An application processes real-time financial transactions. The architecture must guarantee message ordering and exactly-once processing. Which service should be used?

A) SQS Standard Queue B) SQS FIFO Queue C) SNS Standard Topic D) Kinesis Data Streams with a single shard

Question 21#

A company needs to transfer 50 TB of data from their on-premises data center to S3. The internet connection is 100 Mbps. The transfer must complete within 10 days. Which approach is MOST practical?

A) Upload data over the internet using AWS CLI B) Use AWS DataSync over the internet C) Order an AWS Snowball Edge device D) Use S3 Transfer Acceleration

Question 22#

A solutions architect needs to choose a storage solution for a high-performance computing (HPC) workload. The workload requires the highest possible I/O performance. Which storage option should be used?

A) Amazon S3 B) Amazon EFS C) Instance Store D) EBS io2 Block Express

Question 23#

A company uses RDS for MySQL and wants to reduce read latency for their global user base. Which solution is MOST effective?

A) Enable Multi-AZ in the primary region B) Create cross-region read replicas C) Increase the DB instance class D) Use a larger EBS volume

Question 24#

A company uses Lambda functions to process data. The processing time varies from 1 second to 10 minutes. What is the maximum Lambda timeout that can be configured?

A) 5 minutes B) 10 minutes C) 15 minutes D) 30 minutes

Question 25#

Which of the following are valid CloudFront origin types? (Select TWO)

A) S3 bucket B) EC2 instance C) Route53 hosted zone D) ALB E) VPC

Question 26#

A company uses CloudFront to distribute content. They want to serve users from the nearest edge location and automatically fail over to a secondary origin if the primary fails. What should be configured?

A) CloudFront origin groups with failover B) Route53 failover routing policy C) Multiple CloudFront distributions D) CloudFront with WAF

Question 27#

An application stores session data for millions of users. The data must be stored in a key-value store with microsecond latency. Which service provides the BEST performance for this use case?

A) DynamoDB B) ElastiCache for Redis C) RDS for MySQL D) S3

Question 28#

A company needs to analyze streaming data in real-time using SQL queries. Which service should be used?

A) Kinesis Data Streams B) Kinesis Data Analytics C) Kinesis Data Firehose D) S3 Select

Question 29#

A company runs a database on an EC2 instance with an EBS gp3 volume. The database requires 10,000 IOPS consistently. The gp3 volume baseline is 3,000 IOPS. What should be configured to meet the requirement?

A) Increase the volume size to get more baseline IOPS B) Provision additional IOPS on the gp3 volume C) Switch to st1 (throughput optimized) D) Use instance store instead

Question 30#

A company runs a high-traffic API on EC2 instances behind an NLB. The API serves users globally and needs static IP addresses for firewall whitelisting. Which solution provides the BEST performance and fixed IP addresses?

A) CloudFront with the NLB as origin B) Global Accelerator with the NLB as endpoint C) Route53 latency-based routing to multiple NLBs D) Place an ALB in front of the NLB

Question 31#

A company runs a production database on Aurora MySQL. They need to run reporting queries that scan large amounts of data without impacting the primary workload. What should be configured?

A) Create an Aurora Replica and offload reporting queries B) Enable Aurora Auto Scaling C) Use RDS MySQL read replicas D) Enable Performance Insights

Question 32#

A company uses ElastiCache for Redis to cache session data. They need to ensure cache data persists across node failures. What should be configured?

A) Enable Multi-AZ with automatic failover B) Enable Redis AOF (Append-Only File) persistence C) Enable encryption at rest D) Use multiple cache clusters

Question 33#

A company needs to serve static and dynamic content with low latency to users worldwide. The dynamic content requires SSL/TLS termination at the edge. Which service should be used?

A) S3 Transfer Acceleration B) CloudFront with SSL/TLS termination C) Global Accelerator with SSL/TLS termination D) Route53 latency-based routing

Question 34#

A company needs to reduce data transfer costs for their S3 bucket. Users access objects from multiple AWS regions. What is the MOST cost-effective approach?

A) Use S3 Transfer Acceleration B) Use CloudFront to cache objects at edge locations C) Create S3 buckets in each region and use S3 Cross-Region Replication D) Use S3 Internet Gateway

Question 35#

A company runs a video processing workload that requires high-throughput sequential I/O. Which storage solution is BEST suited for this workload?

A) EBS st1 (Throughput Optimized HDD) B) EBS io2 (Provisioned IOPS SSD) C) EBS gp3 (General Purpose SSD) D) Amazon EFS

Question 36#

A company runs a critical database on an EC2 instance. They want to ensure that if the EC2 instance fails, the EBS volume is automatically reattached to a new instance in another AZ. What should be configured?

A) EBS Multi-Attach B) Auto Scaling group with a custom lifecycle hook C) EBS snapshots scheduled via AWS Backup D) CloudWatch alarm to trigger a Lambda function

Question 37#

Which AWS service provides a cost-effective way to query data directly in S3 using standard SQL without managing any infrastructure?

A) Amazon Redshift B) Amazon EMR C) Amazon Athena D) Amazon RDS

Question 38#

A company runs a batch processing job that runs for 4 hours every day. The job can tolerate interruptions. The company wants to minimize costs. Which combination of instance types should be used?

A) 100% On-Demand instances B) 100% Reserved Instances C) 100% Spot Instances with a Spot Fleet D) Scheduled Reserved Instances

Question 39#

A company needs to reduce costs for an EC2-based application that runs 24/7. They currently use On-Demand instances. The company can commit to a 1-year term. Which option provides the BEST savings?

A) Convertible Reserved Instances B) Standard Reserved Instances (1-year, partial upfront) C) Spot Instances D) Dedicated Hosts

Question 40#

A company runs a stateless web application on EC2 instances. The traffic is predictable with peak usage during business hours and low usage at night. Which combination of purchasing options is MOST cost-effective?

A) All On-Demand instances B) Reserved Instances for baseline + Spot Instances for peak C) All Reserved Instances D) All Spot Instances

Question 41#

A company stores data in S3 Standard that is accessed once per month after the first 30 days. After 90 days, it is accessed once per year. After 365 days, the data must be retained for compliance but accessed only if legally required. Which lifecycle policy is MOST cost-effective?

A) Standard → Glacier Flexible Retrieval → Glacier Deep Archive B) Standard → Standard-IA → Glacier Deep Archive → Expire C) Standard → Standard-IA → Glacier Deep Archive D) Standard → One Zone-IA → Glacier Flexible Retrieval

Question 42#

A company runs EC2 instances with various instance types for development workloads. They want to reduce costs while maintaining flexibility to change instance types. Which savings approach is BEST?

A) Compute Savings Plans (1-year) B) EC2 Instance Savings Plans (1-year) C) Standard Reserved Instances D) On-Demand with no commitment

Question 43#

A company needs to analyze their S3 access patterns to recommend cost optimizations. Which AWS service provides this analysis?

A) Cost Explorer B) AWS Compute Optimizer C) Trusted Advisor D) S3 Storage Lens

Question 44#

Which of the following are valid ways to reduce data transfer costs? (Select TWO)

A) Use CloudFront to serve content to users B) Use NAT Gateway for all outbound traffic C) Use VPC Gateway Endpoints for S3 and DynamoDB D) Use Direct Connect for all traffic E) Use multiple NAT Gateways per AZ

Question 45#

A company runs a web application on EC2 instances. The CPU utilization averages 10% but spikes to 80% for 30 minutes daily. What is the MOST cost-effective approach?

A) Use Reserved Instances for the entire workload B) Use Reserved Instances for baseline + Spot Instances for spikes C) Use On-Demand instances with Auto Scaling D) Use a larger instance type

Question 46#

A company needs to store 100 TB of data that is accessed quarterly for auditing. The data must be retrievable within 24 hours. Which storage class is MOST cost-effective?

A) S3 Standard B) S3 Standard-IA C) S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval D) S3 One Zone-IA

Question 47#

A company runs a mix of production and non-production workloads on EC2. They use On-Demand instances for flexibility. The CFO wants to reduce costs by 30% without upfront payment. What should the company purchase?

A) Compute Savings Plans (1-year, no upfront) B) 3-year Standard Reserved Instances (all upfront) C) Convertible Reserved Instances (1-year, partial upfront) D) Spot Instances

Question 48#

A company runs a relational database on an EC2 instance. They want to optimize storage costs. The database is read-heavy and uses gp3 volumes. Which statement about gp3 is correct?

A) gp3 provides a baseline of 3,000 IOPS at no additional cost regardless of volume size B) gp3 IOPS scale linearly with volume size at 3 IOPS per GB C) gp3 has a maximum throughput of 128 MB/s D) gp3 is a hard disk drive (HDD) volume type

Question 49#

A company uses DynamoDB with provisioned capacity for a table that has steady traffic during business hours and low traffic at night. They want to optimize costs without affecting performance. What should be configured?

A) Switch to on-demand capacity mode B) Configure DynamoDB auto scaling C) Create a Global Secondary Index D) Use DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX)

Question 50#

A company needs to assess whether their EC2 instances are right-sized. They want recommendations for instance type changes to reduce costs. Which service provides these recommendations?

A) Cost Explorer B) AWS Compute Optimizer C) Trusted Advisor D) AWS Well-Architected Tool

Question 51#

A company runs a web application using 10 m5.large instances 24/7. They are considering moving to Graviton (ARM-based) instances (m6g.large). Graviton instances are approximately 20% cheaper. The application is compatible with ARM. What is the potential cost savings?

A) 10% reduction B) 20% reduction C) 40% reduction D) 60% reduction

Question 52#

A company runs a Lambda function that processes S3 events. The function is invoked thousands of times per second during peak hours. Which strategy reduces costs?

A) Increase the Lambda memory allocation B) Increase the Lambda timeout C) Use Lambda reserved concurrency D) Use S3 batch operations instead of individual event notifications

Question 53#

A company stores 10 PB of data in S3. The data is accessed with decreasing frequency over time. They want to automatically move data to lower-cost storage classes based on access patterns. Which S3 feature should be used?

A) S3 Lifecycle policies B) S3 Intelligent-Tiering C) S3 Object Lock D) S3 Batch Operations

Question 54#

A company runs a containerized microservices application on ECS with Fargate. They want to optimize costs. Which approach is MOST effective?

A) Use Fargate Spot for non-critical workloads B) Provision EC2 instances for the ECS cluster C) Increase Fargate task sizes D) Use multiple ECS clusters

Question 55#

A company runs a critical application on EC2 instances using On-Demand pricing. They want to reduce costs while maintaining the ability to change instance families. Which savings plan type should be used?

A) EC2 Instance Savings Plans (1-year) B) Compute Savings Plans (1-year) C) Standard Reserved Instances (1-year) D) Convertible Reserved Instances (3-year)

Question 56#

A company needs to retain EBS snapshots for 90 days for recovery, then delete them. What is the MOST efficient way to manage this?

A) Manually delete snapshots older than 90 days B) Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) with a retention policy C) Use S3 lifecycle policies on the snapshot bucket D) Use AWS Backup with a 90-day retention policy

Question 57#

A company runs a DynamoDB table with auto scaling enabled. The table experiences a sudden traffic spike that exceeds the maximum configured capacity. What happens?

A) Requests are throttled with a ProvisionedThroughputExceededException B) The table automatically scales beyond the maximum C) Requests are queued and processed later D) The table switches to on-demand mode temporarily

Question 58#

A company runs an RDS for MySQL instance with a gp2 volume. The database is I/O-bound and needs consistent performance. The current volume is 500 GB with 1,500 IOPS. What is the MOST cost-effective way to improve I/O performance?

A) Switch to a gp3 volume with provisioned IOPS B) Add more storage to increase baseline IOPS C) Migrate to Aurora D) Enable Multi-AZ

Question 59#

A company needs to analyze their AWS costs and usage across multiple accounts. Which service provides a consolidated view?

A) AWS Cost Explorer B) AWS Budgets C) AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) D) Trusted Advisor

Question 60#

A company runs a stateless web application on EC2 instances behind an ALB. The traffic pattern shows steady baseline traffic with unpredictable spikes. Which scaling policy is MOST appropriate?

A) Simple scaling policy based on CPU B) Target tracking scaling policy based on CPU C) Scheduled scaling for known peak hours D) Manual scaling based on monitoring

Question 61#

A company uses S3 Standard for storing log files. The logs are accessed frequently for the first 7 days, then rarely after that. Compliance requires 7-year retention. Which lifecycle configuration is MOST cost-effective?

A) Standard (7 days) → Standard-IA → Glacier Deep Archive (after 1 year) B) Standard (7 days) → One Zone-IA → Glacier Deep Archive (after 30 days) C) Standard (7 days) → Glacier Flexible Retrieval → Glacier Deep Archive (after 90 days) D) Standard (7 days) → Standard-IA (after 30 days) → Glacier Deep Archive (after 365 days)

Question 62#

A company needs to reduce EC2 costs for a batch processing workload. The workload runs for 8 hours every day and must complete within a 10-hour window. The workload can be interrupted. Which purchasing strategy is MOST cost-effective?

A) Reserved Instances B) Spot Instances with a diversified allocation strategy C) On-Demand instances D) Dedicated Hosts

Question 63#

A company runs a database on a single EC2 instance. They want to improve storage efficiency by compressing data before writing to EBS. Which EBS volume type is BEST suited for this workload?

A) gp3 (General Purpose SSD) B) io2 (Provisioned IOPS SSD) C) st1 (Throughput Optimized HDD) D) sc1 (Cold HDD)

Question 64#

A company wants to reduce costs for their development and test environments. The environments are used only during business hours (8 AM to 6 PM, Monday to Friday). Which strategy provides the GREATEST cost savings?

A) Use Reserved Instances B) Use On-Demand instances and stop them outside business hours C) Use Spot Instances D) Use Dedicated Hosts

Question 65#

A company runs a web application on EC2 instances with an ALB. They receive a monthly AWS bill that includes significant data transfer costs. How can they reduce data transfer costs?

A) Use CloudFront to cache and serve content from edge locations B) Use NAT Gateway for all outbound traffic C) Use multiple ALBs in different AZs D) Use larger EC2 instance types

📚 Review#