DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
This DEA-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data ingestion and transformation. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A data engineer is troubleshooting a daily batch ingestion pipeline that uses AWS Glue to read CSV files from Amazon S3 and write Parquet files to another S3 bucket. The job runs successfully but takes significantly longer than expected. The engineer notices that the input data is highly skewed with many small files. Which is the most effective optimization to reduce job duration?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable the 'groupFiles' option in the S3 source configuration
Option D is correct because grouping small files into larger splits reduces the overhead of task creation and improves Spark performance. Option A is wrong because increasing the number of DPUs can increase parallelism but may not help if the issue is file count overhead; it could even be wasteful. Option B is wrong because using a different file format is not the issue; the output is Parquet, which is already efficient. Option C is wrong because changing the shuffle behavior does not directly address the small files problem.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Change the output format to JSON
Why it's wrong here
The output format is not the bottleneck; Parquet is efficient.
✓
Enable the 'groupFiles' option in the S3 source configuration
Why this is correct
Grouping small files into larger splits reduces task overhead and improves performance.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Increase the number of DPUs allocated to the job
Why it's wrong here
More DPUs may increase parallelism but do not reduce the overhead of processing many small files.
✗
Enable the 'use_glue_schema_registry' option
Why it's wrong here
Schema registry does not address file size issues.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Trap categories for this question
Command / output trap
The output format is not the bottleneck; Parquet is efficient.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
→Underline the problem statement mentally.
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which DEA-C01 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
Data Ingestion and Transformation — This question tests Data Ingestion and Transformation — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Enable the 'groupFiles' option in the S3 source configuration — Option D is correct because grouping small files into larger splits reduces the overhead of task creation and improves Spark performance. Option A is wrong because increasing the number of DPUs can increase parallelism but may not help if the issue is file count overhead; it could even be wasteful. Option B is wrong because using a different file format is not the issue; the output is Parquet, which is already efficient. Option C is wrong because changing the shuffle behavior does not directly address the small files problem.
What should I do if I get this DEA-C01 question wrong?
Identify which DEA-C01 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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