This DEA-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data store management. 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 an Amazon RDS for MySQL instance that is experiencing high read latency. The instance is a Single-AZ db.r5.large with 100 GB of General Purpose (gp2) storage. Which action is most likely to reduce read latency?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "most likely"
Why it matters: Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
Create a read replica and direct read queries to it.
Offloads read traffic, reducing load on the primary.
Enable automatic backups with a 7-day retention.
Why wrong: Backups do not affect read latency.
Increase the allocated storage to 200 GB.
Why wrong: Increases baseline IOPS but does not directly reduce latency.
Convert the instance to a Multi-AZ deployment.
Why wrong: Multi-AZ improves availability, not read performance.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Create a read replica and direct read queries to it.
Creating a read replica offloads SELECT queries from the primary instance, directly reducing the read load and thus read latency. Since the instance is Single-AZ and experiencing high read latency, a read replica distributes the read traffic without altering the existing storage or availability configuration.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Create a read replica and direct read queries to it.
Why this is correct
Offloads read traffic, reducing load on the primary.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "most likely" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Enable automatic backups with a 7-day retention.
Why it's wrong here
Backups do not affect read latency.
Increase the allocated storage to 200 GB.
Why it's wrong here
Increases baseline IOPS but does not directly reduce latency.
Convert the instance to a Multi-AZ deployment.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ improves availability, not read performance.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Multi-AZ with read replicas, assuming Multi-AZ provides read scaling, but Multi-AZ only provides a standby for failover, not a read endpoint.
Detailed technical explanation
Amazon RDS read replicas use asynchronous replication from the source DB instance to the replica using the MySQL native binlog replication. The replica can serve read traffic independently, and you can create up to 5 read replicas for MySQL. In a real-world scenario, if the primary instance's CPU is pegged at 100% due to heavy SELECT queries, offloading those queries to a read replica can reduce latency without requiring a larger instance or storage change.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
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
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FAQ
Data Store Management — This question tests Data Store Management — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Create a read replica and direct read queries to it. — Creating a read replica offloads SELECT queries from the primary instance, directly reducing the read load and thus read latency. Since the instance is Single-AZ and experiencing high read latency, a read replica distributes the read traffic without altering the existing storage or availability configuration.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Yes — watch for: "most likely". Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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