DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A company uses AWS Lake Formation to manage data lake permissions. A data analyst cannot query a table in Athena, although the table appears in the catalog. The analyst has IAM permissions to run Athena. What is the MOST likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is assuming that IAM permissions alone are sufficient to query data in a Lake Formation-governed data lake. Candidates might overlook Lake Formation's role and pick S3 bucket policy or Glue catalog issues. The exam tests the layered security model where Lake Formation permissions are required in addition to IAM.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The analyst lacks Lake Formation permissions on the table.
The most likely cause is that the analyst lacks Lake Formation permissions on the table. Even with IAM permissions to run Athena, Lake Formation enforces fine-grained access control at the table and column level. If the analyst has not been granted SELECT permission on the table via Lake Formation, Athena queries will fail with an access denied error, even though the table appears in the Glue Data Catalog.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The Glue Data Catalog does not have the table registered.
Why it's wrong here
The stem states the table appears in the catalog, so it is registered; the failure lies in Lake Formation grants, not Glue registration. This is tempting because an unregistered table is invisible to Athena, which would be the cause if the table were absent from the catalog entirely.
- ✗
The S3 bucket policy denies access to the analyst's IAM role.
Why it's wrong here
Lake Formation permissions are separate; S3 policy is not the issue if Lake Formation is used.
- ✓
The analyst lacks Lake Formation permissions on the table.
Why this is correct
Lake Formation enforces its own table and column-level grants on top of IAM. The analyst's IAM policy permits Athena API calls, but without a Lake Formation SELECT grant on the table, the query is denied — explaining why the table appears in the catalog yet remains unqueryable.
- ✗
The Athena workgroup is not configured with the correct output location.
Why it's wrong here
A missing workgroup output location causes query-result write failures, not permission errors on the table itself, and the analyst already holds Athena permissions. It is tempting because workgroup configuration commonly breaks Athena queries, and would be correct if the error concerned result storage rather than access.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
This DEA-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DEA-C01 exam.