Build and Run Data Pipelines on AWS. Pass DEA-C01.
500 scenario-based practice questions covering data ingestion and transformation, data store management, data operations, and data security and governance. Mapped to the four domains of the official DEA-C01 exam guide.
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The AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) is a associate-level AWS certification. The exam has 65 questions, runs 130 minutes, costs $150, and requires a passing score of 720/1000. CertSharp provides 500 exam-style DEA-C01 practice questions — 30 free with no credit card — each with a detailed explanation.
Study guides teach concepts. We prepare you for the actual DEA-C01 exam.
1
Service-selection scenarios across Glue, Kinesis, MSK, EMR, Redshift, Athena, and Lake Formation — the trade-offs DEA-C01 tests
2
Every answer checked against current AWS documentation, with explanations that say why each distractor fails
3
Weighted toward Data Ingestion and Transformation, the largest domain at 34% of the exam
4
Multiple-response questions included, matching the format of the real exam
Free Sample Questions
DEA-C01 Practice Questions (Free Sample)
Real DEA-C01 exam-style questions from our 500-question AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate bank, each with the correct answer and a detailed explanation.
Question 1 — DEA-C01
A Kinesis data stream has five consumer applications, and each one needs its own dedicated read throughput without competing for the shared 2 MB/s per shard limit. What should the engineer configure?
A
A longer stream retention period so consumers read at different times of day
B
A larger GetRecords batch size so each consumer receives more data per call
C
Enhanced fan-out so each registered consumer gets its own 2 MB/s per shard
D
A second stream that mirrors the first so consumers are split between two streams
Correct answer: C — Explanation
Enhanced fan-out gives every registered consumer a dedicated 2 MB/s of read throughput per shard using HTTP/2 push through SubscribeToShard. Raising the batch size or retention does not add read capacity to the shard. Mirroring to a second stream doubles cost and adds operational overhead without solving the per-shard limit cleanly.
Question 2Data Operations and SupportEasy
Which AWS service lets analysts run standard SQL queries directly against data stored in Amazon S3 without managing servers?
A
Amazon ElastiCache
B
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
C
Amazon Athena
D
Amazon Lightsail
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C — Amazon Athena
Athena is a serverless interactive query service that analyzes data in S3 using standard SQL. ElastiCache is an in-memory cache, and Elastic Beanstalk and Lightsail are application hosting services.
Question 3Data Store ManagementEasy
A company needs a database that provides single-digit millisecond latency for key-value lookups at any scale with no server management. Which service fits?
A
Amazon Athena
B
Amazon DynamoDB
C
Amazon EMR
D
Amazon Redshift
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B — Amazon DynamoDB
DynamoDB is a serverless key-value and document database with single-digit millisecond performance at scale. Redshift and Athena are analytical engines, and EMR is a big data processing framework.
Question 4Data Ingestion and TransformationEasy
An engineer wants to load data from a SaaS application such as Salesforce into Amazon S3 on a schedule without writing code. Which AWS service is designed for this?
A
AWS DataSync with an agent installed on the SaaS provider's servers
B
Amazon MSK Connect with a custom sink connector written for the SaaS API
C
AWS Snowball Edge with a data export job shipped from the SaaS vendor
D
Amazon AppFlow with a scheduled flow that maps SaaS fields to an S3 destination
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D — Amazon AppFlow with a scheduled flow that maps SaaS fields to an S3 destination
Amazon AppFlow provides managed, no-code integrations between SaaS applications and AWS services, including scheduled, event-driven, and on-demand flows. DataSync moves data between storage systems and requires an agent in an environment you control. Snow Family devices are for physical bulk transfer, and MSK Connect would require building and operating a custom connector.
Question 5Data Security and GovernanceEasy
Which AWS service uses machine learning to discover and protect sensitive data such as personally identifiable information in Amazon S3?
A
AWS Direct Connect
B
Amazon Macie
C
Amazon SQS
D
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B — Amazon Macie
Macie automatically discovers sensitive data in S3, including PII, and reports findings. Direct Connect is a network link, SQS is a queue, and Elastic Beanstalk deploys applications.
Question 6Data Operations and SupportMedium
A DataBrew project contains a column with inconsistent country names. The analyst wants to find the number of unique values and the share of nulls before cleaning. Which DataBrew feature provides this?
A
Dataset parameters, which hold the S3 path to the files
B
Schedules, which run the project at a specific time
C
Recipe versions, which store the earlier steps of the project
D
Data profile jobs, which generate statistics such as unique values and missing values
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D — Data profile jobs, which generate statistics such as unique values and missing values
Profile jobs analyze a dataset and report statistics like cardinality, missing values, and distributions. Recipe versions, parameters, and schedules do not provide data statistics.
Question 7Data Store ManagementMedium
A DynamoDB table stores session records that should be deleted automatically 24 hours after creation without consuming write capacity. Which feature should be used?
A
A global secondary index sorted by creation time with a retention setting
B
Time to Live (TTL) on an attribute that stores the expiry timestamp
C
A DynamoDB stream that triggers deletion of items older than one day
D
A scheduled Lambda function that deletes expired items with BatchWriteItem
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B — Time to Live (TTL) on an attribute that stores the expiry timestamp
TTL deletes expired items in the background at no write cost, based on an epoch timestamp attribute. A Lambda function consumes write capacity and needs maintenance, a GSI has no retention setting, and streams only record changes.
Question 8Data Security and GovernanceMedium
An ETL job on Glue reads from an Amazon RDS database. The company wants the database password rotated every 30 days without code changes or downtime. What should the engineer do?
A
Store the password in a Glue job parameter and rotate it manually each month
B
Store the password in the S3 script file and update the file after each rotation
C
Store the password in an environment variable of the engineer's laptop
D
Store the credentials in Secrets Manager with automatic rotation enabled and have the job retrieve the secret at runtime
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D — Store the credentials in Secrets Manager with automatic rotation enabled and have the job retrieve the secret at runtime
Secrets Manager rotates RDS credentials on a schedule, and jobs retrieve the current secret at runtime, so no code changes are needed. Job parameters and script files require manual updates and expose the password, and a laptop variable is not accessible to the job.
Question 9Data Operations and SupportEasy
Which SQL clause groups rows that have the same values in specified columns so aggregate functions can be applied to each group?
A
LIMIT
B
UNION
C
GROUP BY
D
ORDER BY
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C — GROUP BY
GROUP BY collects rows with identical values in the listed columns so functions such as SUM or COUNT apply to each group. ORDER BY sorts, LIMIT restricts rows, and UNION combines result sets.
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Everything you need to know about AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate
What is the DEA-C01 exam?
DEA-C01 is the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam. It validates implementing data pipelines and monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimizing them on AWS. The exam costs $150, has 65 questions in 130 minutes, and requires a scaled score of 720 out of 1000 to pass.
How many questions are on DEA-C01?
The DEA-C01 exam has 65 questions: 50 scored and 15 unscored. Questions are multiple choice or multiple response, and the time limit is 130 minutes.
What is the DEA-C01 passing score?
The DEA-C01 passing score is 720 on a scale of 100–1000. Scoring is compensatory, so you need to pass the exam overall rather than every domain.
What are the DEA-C01 exam domains?
DEA-C01 has four domains: Data Ingestion and Transformation (34%), Data Store Management (26%), Data Operations and Support (22%), and Data Security and Governance (18%).
Which AWS services are on DEA-C01?
Expect AWS Glue (jobs, crawlers, Data Catalog, DataBrew), Amazon Kinesis, Amazon MSK, Amazon EMR, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Athena, Amazon S3, DynamoDB, AWS Lake Formation, Step Functions, and Amazon MWAA, plus IAM, KMS, and CloudTrail for security and auditing.
How hard is DEA-C01?
DEA-C01 is an Associate exam, but it is broad: many questions ask you to pick the most cost-effective or least operationally complex service for a pipeline. It is easier if you have built ETL pipelines and written SQL before.
What experience does AWS recommend for DEA-C01?
AWS recommends the equivalent of 2–3 years of data engineering experience and at least 1–2 years of hands-on experience with AWS services. There is no formal prerequisite.
How long does it take to prepare for DEA-C01?
Plan for 6–10 weeks at 1–2 hours per day. Build a small pipeline end to end (ingest, transform with Glue, catalog, query with Athena or Redshift), then use timed practice exams to find weak domains.
How much does the DEA-C01 exam cost?
The AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) exam costs $150 USD plus applicable taxes, at a Pearson VUE test center or online with a remote proctor. The certification is valid for 3 years.
Is there a free DEA-C01 practice test?
Yes. CertSharp offers a free DEA-C01 practice test for the AWS Data Engineer – Associate exam: 30 questions per session with detailed explanations, no credit card required. The full 500-question DEA-C01 bank, including timed exam mode, is $11.99 one-time with lifetime access, or included in Pro.
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