DA0-002 Data Acquisition and Preparation Practice Test 6 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A data analyst needs to collect customer sentiment data from social media platforms. Which data acquisition method is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Use web scraping. Web scraping is the most appropriate method because it allows the data analyst to programmatically extract unstructured customer sentiment data (e.g., posts, comments, reviews) directly from social media platforms using HTTP requests and HTML parsing. Unlike surveys or focus groups, scraping can collect large volumes of real-time, publicly available data without relying on self-reported or curated responses.

Answer

Conduct a survey

Answer

Organize focus groups

Answer

Query the internal CRM

Question 2

A company is merging two customer databases from different acquisitions. They need to identify duplicate records. Which data profiling technique is most effective?

Accepted Answer

Fuzzy matching on name and address. Fuzzy matching on name and address is the most effective technique because customer databases from different acquisitions often contain variations in spelling, formatting, and abbreviations (e.g., 'Bob' vs. 'Robert', 'St.' vs. 'Street'). Exact matching would miss these duplicates, while fuzzy matching uses algorithms like Levenshtein distance or Jaro-Winkler to quantify similarity and identify near-matches, ensuring comprehensive deduplication.

Answer

Manually compare all records

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Exact match on customer names

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Use primary keys from each database

Question 3

A data architect is designing an ETL pipeline to ingest streaming data from IoT sensors. The data must be available for real-time analytics. Which acquisition method is best?

Accepted Answer

Real-time streaming via API. Real-time streaming via API is the best method because IoT sensors generate continuous data that must be ingested with sub-second latency for real-time analytics. APIs (e.g., REST, WebSocket, or MQTT) enable event-driven ingestion, allowing the ETL pipeline to process each sensor reading as it arrives, which is essential for time-sensitive use cases like anomaly detection or live monitoring.

Answer

Poll sensors every hour

Answer

Manually upload sensor logs

Answer

Batch load daily CSV files

Question 4

A marketing team wants to collect data on competitor pricing for similar products. Which data source is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

External public web scraping. External public web scraping is the most appropriate data source because competitor pricing is publicly available on websites, and web scraping allows automated extraction of this structured or unstructured data. This approach directly addresses the need for external competitive intelligence without relying on internal or customer-reported data.

Answer

Customer surveys

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Internal ERP system

Answer

Internal sales data

Question 5

During data acquisition, an analyst notices that the data from an external vendor has inconsistent date formats. What is the first step the analyst should take?

Accepted Answer

Perform data profiling. Before transforming or rejecting data, the analyst must first understand its shape, quality, and anomalies — that is data profiling. Profiling reveals the extent and pattern of the inconsistent date formats, how many records are affected, and whether other issues exist, which then informs the correct remediation approach. Jumping straight to transformation without profiling risks applying the wrong parsing rules.

Answer

Contact the vendor to request corrected data

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Immediately transform dates to a standard format

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Reject the entire dataset

Question 6

A data engineer needs to acquire data from a legacy mainframe system that does not support modern APIs or direct database connectivity. Which approach is most feasible?

Accepted Answer

Use FTP to transfer flat files. FTP (File Transfer Protocol, RFC 959) is a widely supported, low-overhead method for transferring flat files (e.g., CSV, EBCDIC-encoded text) from legacy mainframe systems that lack modern APIs or direct database connectivity. Mainframes like IBM z/OS natively support FTP, allowing the data engineer to schedule periodic file exports without requiring system modernization or complex middleware.

Answer

Re-platform the mainframe to a modern system

Answer

Use a database gateway

Answer

Manual data entry

Question 7

A small business wants to acquire customer feedback through a short questionnaire emailed after purchase. Which data acquisition method does this represent?

Accepted Answer

Survey. A survey is a structured data collection method where respondents answer predefined questions, typically via a form or questionnaire. In this scenario, the business is using a short questionnaire emailed after purchase to gather customer feedback, which directly aligns with the definition of a survey as a data acquisition method.

Answer

Transaction log

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Interview

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Observation

Question 8

An organization is integrating data from multiple sources into a data warehouse. They need to handle differences in data granularity (e.g., daily vs. hourly sales data). Which technique is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Data aggregation. Data aggregation is the correct technique because it allows the organization to roll up hourly sales data to a daily granularity, ensuring consistency when integrating sources with different levels of detail. By applying aggregation functions (e.g., SUM, AVG) during the ETL process, the data warehouse can store all data at a common grain, which is essential for accurate reporting and analysis.

Answer

Data normalization

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Data deduplication

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Data profiling

Question 9

A data analyst is using a public API to collect historical weather data. The API has a rate limit of 100 requests per minute, but the analyst needs to retrieve 10,000 records as quickly as possible. What strategy should be used?

Accepted Answer

Paginate with appropriate delays. Paginating with appropriate delays respects the API's rate limit of 100 requests per minute while maximizing throughput. By splitting the 10,000 records into pages (e.g., 100 records per page) and sending requests at a rate just under the limit (e.g., one request every 0.6 seconds), the analyst can retrieve all data in approximately 100 minutes without triggering HTTP 429 rate-limit errors.

Answer

Increase the request rate

Answer

Use multiple API keys

Answer

Download a precompiled dataset

Question 10

Which TWO are common methods for acquiring internal data? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Transaction logs. Transaction logs (B) are a common internal data source because they are generated by an organization's own systems, capturing events such as purchases, clicks, or system activity within the company's operational environment. ERP systems (D) are also a core internal data source, since they store and manage enterprise operational data like finance, inventory, HR, and supply chain records generated inside the organization. By contrast, social media APIs (A), government databases (C), and web scraping (E) are external data acquisition methods, as they pull data from sources outside the organization's direct control.

Answer

Social media APIs

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Government databases

Answer

Web scraping

Question 11

Which THREE are best practices for data profiling during acquisition? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Check for completeness. Checking for completeness (Option B) is a best practice during data acquisition because it ensures that all required fields and records are present before further processing. Incomplete data can lead to incorrect analysis or failed transformations, so profiling for missing values or nulls is a fundamental validation step.

Answer

Immediately normalize data

Answer

Skip validation for trusted sources

Question 12

A data analyst is tasked with combining customer data from a CRM system and a billing system. The CRM uses a GUID for customer ID, while billing uses an integer. Which approach should the analyst use to ensure a reliable merge?

Accepted Answer

Standardize the customer ID format and use it as the join key.. Standardizing the customer ID format (e.g., converting the billing integer to a GUID or mapping both to a common string key) ensures a consistent join key across heterogeneous systems. This eliminates type mismatch errors and guarantees that each customer record can be matched reliably, as GUIDs are globally unique and integers are typically sequential, so direct comparison would fail without transformation.

Answer

Use the customer name as the join key.

Answer

Merge using a cross-join and then filter manually.

Answer

Perform a fuzzy match on the customer address.

Question 13

A data team needs to extract data from a legacy system that only supports flat file exports. Which data acquisition method is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

File transfer via SFTP. The legacy system only supports flat file exports, meaning it cannot provide direct database or API access. SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) is the most appropriate method because it securely transfers flat files over a network, aligning with the system's export capabilities while ensuring data integrity and encryption during transit.

Answer

Database replication

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API call

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Web scraping

Question 14

Refer to the exhibit. What does the query return?

Accepted Answer

Customers who have placed more than 5 orders.. The query uses a HAVING clause with COUNT(*) > 5, which filters groups (by customer ID) to only those with more than 5 orders. The GROUP BY customer ID ensures the count is per customer, so the result is customers who have placed more than 5 orders. Option C is correct because the condition is strictly greater than 5, not at least 5.

Answer

All orders grouped by customer ID.

Answer

Customers who have placed at least 5 orders.

Answer

All customers who have placed orders.

Question 15

Refer to the exhibit. What data quality issue is indicated?

Accepted Answer

Non-standardized data entry. The exhibit shows the same logical value entered in multiple inconsistent formats (e.g., 'NY', 'New York', 'new york', 'N.Y.'), which is the hallmark of non-standardized data entry. The data is not duplicated (different spellings), not an outlier (no extreme numeric value), and not a referential inconsistency (no conflicting values across tables) — it is a formatting/standardization problem at the point of capture.

Answer

Data inconsistency

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Outlier

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Data duplication