SAA-C03 Practice Test 12 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A marketing site runs on x86 EC2 instances and uses open-source software with no architecture-specific licensing restriction. What should be evaluated to reduce compute cost? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

AWS Graviton-based instances after performance testing. Option C is correct because AWS Graviton-based instances (ARM architecture) offer up to 40% better price-performance compared to comparable x86 instances for many workloads. Since the marketing site uses open-source software with no architecture-specific licensing restrictions, migrating to Graviton after performance testing can significantly reduce compute costs without requiring custom operational scripts, as the OS and software can be recompiled for ARM natively.

Answer

Cross-Region data replication for all data

Answer

io2 Block Express volumes for all instances

Answer

Dedicated Hosts by default

Question 2

A company serves versioned images from S3 through CloudFront. After a release, CloudFront origin fetches increased sharply and the monthly CloudFront bill went up. They reviewed CloudFront logs and found that many requests include a query string parameter `reqId` that is unique per request (for example, `...?v=2026-04-01&reqId=...`). The team currently forwards all query strings to the cache key. What change is most likely to reduce origin fetches and cost while keeping the versioned images correct?

Accepted Answer

Update the CloudFront cache policy to ignore `reqId` and include only the stable `v` query string parameter in the cache key.. Option A is correct because the `reqId` query string parameter is unique per request, which forces CloudFront to treat each request as a distinct cache object when all query strings are forwarded to the cache key. By configuring the cache policy to include only the stable `v` parameter (the version identifier) and ignore `reqId`, CloudFront can serve cached responses for all requests with the same `v` value, drastically reducing origin fetches and lowering costs. This approach preserves correct versioned image delivery because the `v` parameter still differentiates between image versions.

Answer

Lower the CloudFront minimum TTL to 0 seconds so cached objects revalidate more often, reducing origin fetch volume.

Answer

Set the S3 bucket to use compression and enable S3 Transfer Acceleration to reduce origin fetch charges.

Answer

Disable forwarding of the query string to the origin, but keep using the full query string (including `reqId`) in the cache key.

Question 3

A global software company distributes large installation packages from an Amazon S3 bucket. During release week, many users in the same region download the same file repeatedly, and the origin bill is rising because the same objects are fetched over and over. The team wants to lower origin data transfer and improve delivery cost. Which two actions should it take? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Put Amazon CloudFront in front of the S3 origin.. Amazon CloudFront acts as a content delivery network (CDN) that caches objects at edge locations close to users. By placing CloudFront in front of the S3 bucket, repeated downloads of the same file are served from the edge cache, drastically reducing the number of requests to the S3 origin and lowering data transfer costs from S3. CloudFront also offers free data transfer to the origin for cached content, further optimizing delivery cost.

Answer

Disable caching so every user always gets the newest file from S3.

Answer

Serve the downloads from a self-managed EC2 web server instead of S3.

Answer

Move the release packages to S3 Glacier Deep Archive for faster downloads.

Question 4

A company uses AWS Organizations and has separate development, test, and production accounts. The security team wants to ensure that no one in the sandbox organizational unit can disable AWS CloudTrail or delete the central audit bucket, even if an account administrator creates permissive IAM policies later. Which control should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use a service control policy on the sandbox organizational unit to deny the prohibited actions.. Service control policies (SCPs) are the correct mechanism because they act as a centralized guardrail at the AWS Organizations level, setting maximum permissions for all accounts in an organizational unit (OU). Even if an account administrator creates permissive IAM policies later, an SCP that explicitly denies disabling CloudTrail or deleting the central audit bucket will override those permissions, ensuring the security team's requirements are enforced across the sandbox OU.

Answer

Attach an identity-based policy in each account that denies CloudTrail changes.

Answer

Create an S3 bucket policy that allows only the audit team role to delete objects.

Answer

Apply a permission boundary to each IAM user in the sandbox accounts.

Question 5

A compute workload uses temporary scratch space for intermediate results (reproducible), and it can tolerate data loss if the instance is terminated. The workload benefits from very high local I/O throughput. Which storage option is the best fit for the scratch data?

Accepted Answer

Instance store for local temporary files that can be lost when the instance stops.. Instance store volumes provide very high local I/O throughput because they are physically attached to the host server, making them ideal for temporary scratch data that is reproducible and can tolerate loss. Since the workload explicitly accepts data loss on instance termination and does not require persistence across reboots, instance store is the best fit for this use case.

Answer

Amazon EBS General Purpose (gp3) volumes to persist intermediate results across reboots.

Answer

Amazon EFS for a shared file system between multiple instances.

Answer

Amazon S3 for scratch data so it is always durable and accessible from anywhere.

Question 6

A marketing site runs on x86 EC2 instances and uses open-source software with no architecture-specific licensing restriction. What should be evaluated to reduce compute cost?

Accepted Answer

AWS Graviton-based instances after performance testing. Option C is correct because AWS Graviton-based instances (ARM architecture) offer up to 40% better price-performance compared to comparable x86 instances for many workloads. Since the marketing site uses open-source software with no architecture-specific licensing restrictions, migrating to Graviton after performance testing can significantly reduce compute costs without sacrificing performance.

Answer

Cross-Region data replication for all data

Answer

io2 Block Express volumes for all instances

Answer

Dedicated Hosts by default

Question 7

A Lambda function in Account A must upload reports to an S3 bucket in Account B. Security does not want long-lived access keys anywhere, and the access should be easy to revoke from Account B. Which approach is best?

Accepted Answer

Create an IAM role in Account B that Account A can assume through STS, then grant the role S3 permissions.. Option A is correct because it uses cross-account IAM roles with AWS Security Token Service (STS) to grant temporary credentials to the Lambda function. This avoids long-lived access keys, and the permissions can be revoked immediately by modifying or deleting the role in Account B, meeting the security requirements.

Answer

Create an IAM user in Account B and store its access keys in Lambda environment variables.

Answer

Attach a security group to the Lambda function that allows outbound traffic to the bucket.

Answer

Use AWS Organizations SCPs to grant the Lambda function permission to write to the bucket.

Question 8

A latency-sensitive API is implemented with AWS Lambda. During traffic ramp-ups, users sometimes experience slow responses due to cold starts. The team wants to ensure fast initialization for a baseline level of concurrent requests. Which AWS feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

Lambda provisioned concurrency. Lambda Provisioned Concurrency keeps a specified number of execution environments initialized and ready to respond immediately, eliminating cold starts for those concurrent requests. This directly addresses the latency-sensitive API requirement during traffic ramp-ups by ensuring fast initialization for a baseline level of concurrency.

Answer

Increase reserved instances for EC2

Answer

Enable S3 event notifications for every request to the API

Answer

Decrease the function timeout to reduce execution variability

Question 9

A nightly video rendering pipeline runs on Linux EC2 instances and is compatible with ARM64. The jobs are CPU-bound, checkpoint frequently, and can resume if interrupted. The business wants the best throughput per dollar for the batch window. Which two changes should the team make? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Graviton-based instances for the render workers.. AWS Graviton-based instances use ARM64 architecture, which is explicitly compatible with the video rendering pipeline. They offer up to 40% better price-performance compared to comparable x86 instances for CPU-bound workloads, directly improving throughput per dollar. This makes option A correct for maximizing cost efficiency.

Answer

Use a single large x86 instance with On-Demand pricing to avoid interruptions.

Answer

Replace the batch workers with a Lambda function to eliminate instance management.

Answer

Move the workload to a spread placement group to increase cost efficiency.

Question 10

A marketing site serves versioned JavaScript and CSS files from Amazon S3 through CloudFront. The origin bill is rising because CloudFront keeps fetching the same files too often, and the application never changes a file at the same URL once it is published. Which two changes should you make? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Set long-lived Cache-Control headers, such as a high max-age and immutable policy, on the versioned assets.. Option A is correct because setting long-lived Cache-Control headers (e.g., `max-age=31536000` and `immutable`) on versioned assets tells CloudFront and browsers to cache the files aggressively. Since the application never changes a file at the same URL, this eliminates redundant origin fetches, directly reducing the origin bill.

Answer

Move the static assets to an EC2 web server behind an Application Load Balancer.

Answer

Disable CloudFront caching so every request always reaches the origin.

Answer

Add more viewer-facing headers to the cache key so each browser variation gets a unique cached object.

Question 11

A media company stores daily financial exports in Amazon S3. The files must be protected against accidental overwrite or deletion, and the business also wants a second copy in another Region for recovery after a regional outage. Which two actions should the architect take? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Enable bucket versioning on the S3 bucket.. Option A is correct because enabling S3 Versioning on the bucket protects objects from accidental overwrite or deletion by preserving previous versions of each object. When versioning is enabled, a delete marker is placed instead of permanently removing the object, and overwrites create a new version while retaining the old one. This directly meets the requirement to guard against accidental data loss.

Answer

Turn on S3 Transfer Acceleration for the bucket.

Answer

Use only lifecycle policies to move objects to Glacier.

Answer

Enable S3 Block Public Access on the bucket.

Question 12

A marketing site has EC2 instances that are oversized based on CPU, memory, and network utilisation. Which AWS service should identify rightsizing recommendations?

Accepted Answer

AWS Compute Optimizer. AWS Compute Optimizer analyzes historical utilization metrics (CPU, memory, network, and storage) from CloudWatch and uses machine learning to identify over-provisioned or under-provisioned EC2 instances. It generates actionable rightsizing recommendations, including instance type changes, to optimize cost and performance. This directly addresses the scenario of oversized EC2 instances.

Answer

AWS Shield

Answer

AWS DataSync

Answer

AWS Artifact

Question 13

A latency-sensitive API is implemented with AWS Lambda. The team enabled provisioned concurrency to avoid cold starts, setting provisioned concurrency to 50 because marketing campaigns occasionally cause spikes. However, during most weekdays the API receives little traffic (near zero), and the team is seeing high monthly Lambda costs from idle provisioned capacity. What is the best cost-optimized strategy that still meets the requirement of fast initial responses during traffic spikes?

Accepted Answer

Use Application Auto Scaling scheduled actions to increase provisioned concurrency on the Lambda alias before campaign windows and reduce it to a minimal baseline afterward.. Option B is correct because it uses Application Auto Scaling scheduled actions to dynamically adjust provisioned concurrency, scaling up to 50 before marketing campaigns and reducing to a minimal baseline (e.g., 1-5) during low-traffic weekdays. This eliminates idle capacity costs while ensuring fast initial responses during spikes, as provisioned concurrency keeps Lambda environments warm and ready to handle requests without cold starts.

Answer

Increase provisioned concurrency to 100 so that cold starts never occur, regardless of traffic patterns.

Answer

Turn provisioned concurrency off permanently and rely on retries at the client side to mask cold starts.

Answer

Replace Lambda with a single always-on EC2 instance sized for peak demand to eliminate cold starts.

Question 14

A production team accidentally deletes critical rows in an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL database. The deletion occurred about 6 hours ago. The team wants to recover to a specific point in time with minimal disruption.

Assuming automated backups are enabled, which approach provides the best resilience outcome?

Accepted Answer

Use point-in-time recovery (PITR) to restore a new DB instance to a timestamp shortly before the deletion, then switch application traffic to the restored instance.. Point-in-time recovery (PITR) allows you to restore a new DB instance to any second within the automated backup retention period, which includes transaction logs. By restoring to a timestamp just before the deletion, you recover the lost rows without affecting the current production instance, then switch traffic to the new instance for minimal disruption.

Answer

Restore the current DB instance in place by overwriting it with only the latest automated backup.

Answer

Create a manual snapshot and restore from it only if the snapshot date exactly matches today.

Answer

Perform a database-level rollback using transaction logs from the application server without using RDS restore features.

Question 15

A marketing site serves versioned JavaScript and CSS files from an Amazon S3 origin through Amazon CloudFront. After a frontend release, the CloudFront cache hit ratio dropped because browsers now send an Authorization header on every static asset request even though the assets are public and do not require authentication. The team wants to lower origin load and improve cache efficiency. Which two actions should it take? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Create a separate CloudFront behavior for static assets with a cache policy and origin request policy that exclude the Authorization header.. Option A is correct because creating a separate CloudFront behavior for static assets allows you to attach a cache policy and an origin request policy that explicitly exclude the Authorization header. By not forwarding the Authorization header to the S3 origin, CloudFront can treat all requests for the same asset as cache hits, regardless of the header value, which restores the cache hit ratio and reduces origin load.

Answer

Forward the Authorization header to the origin for all static asset requests.

Answer

Set the cache TTL to zero so browsers always revalidate content.

Answer

Store the static assets in Amazon EFS so CloudFront can cache them more effectively.