This DVA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of development with aws services. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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.
Refer to the exhibit. An IAM policy is attached to an IAM user. The user tries to upload a file to s3://my-bucket/confidential/report.pdf. What will happen?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The upload fails because the Deny statement overrides the Allow.
The correct answer is A because IAM policy evaluation logic dictates that an explicit Deny always overrides any Allow. In this scenario, the Deny statement denies s3:PutObject on the path `my-bucket/confidential/*`, which matches the user's upload target `s3://my-bucket/confidential/report.pdf`. Even though the Allow statement grants s3:PutObject on `my-bucket/*`, the explicit Deny takes precedence, causing the upload to fail.
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.
✓
The upload fails because the Deny statement overrides the Allow.
Why this is correct
Explicit Deny overrides any Allow.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
The upload succeeds because the Deny statement applies only to the bucket, not the user.
Why it's wrong here
The Deny applies to the user via the policy.
✗
The upload fails because the policy does not allow PutObject on that path.
Why it's wrong here
The Allow grants PutObject on the bucket, but Deny overrides.
✗
The upload succeeds because the Allow statement grants PutObject.
Why it's wrong here
The Deny statement overrides the Allow.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume an Allow statement alone determines access, forgetting that an explicit Deny in the same policy overrides any Allow, regardless of the order in which the statements appear.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, AWS IAM uses a default implicit Deny for all actions, but an explicit Deny in a policy is evaluated last and takes precedence over any Allow. This is part of AWS's policy evaluation logic, which follows the order: explicit Deny > explicit Allow > default implicit Deny. In real-world scenarios, this prevents accidental privilege escalation when a broad Allow is combined with a restrictive Deny, such as denying access to sensitive subpaths like `confidential/` while allowing general bucket access.
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.
TExam Day Tips
→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.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
Storage Class
Min Duration
Retrieval
Use Case
S3 Standard
None
Immediate
Frequently accessed data
S3 Standard-IA
30 days
Immediate
Infrequent access, rapid retrieval
S3 One Zone-IA
30 days
Immediate
Non-critical infrequent data
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
None
Immediate–hours
Unknown or changing access patterns
S3 Glacier Instant
90 days
Milliseconds
Archive with instant retrieval
S3 Glacier Flexible
90 days
Minutes–hours
Archive, flexible retrieval
S3 Glacier Deep Archive
180 days
Hours
Long-term compliance archive
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Development with AWS Services — This question tests Development with AWS Services — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: The upload fails because the Deny statement overrides the Allow. — The correct answer is A because IAM policy evaluation logic dictates that an explicit Deny always overrides any Allow. In this scenario, the Deny statement denies s3:PutObject on the path `my-bucket/confidential/*`, which matches the user's upload target `s3://my-bucket/confidential/report.pdf`. Even though the Allow statement grants s3:PutObject on `my-bucket/*`, the explicit Deny takes precedence, causing the upload to fail.
What should I do if I get this DVA-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
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These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. Refer to the exhibit. An IAM policy is attached to an IAM user. The user tries to upload an object to s3://my-bucket/confidential/report.pdf. What is the outcome?
hard
A.The upload succeeds because the Allow statement grants s3:PutObject on the bucket.
B.The upload fails because there is no Allow statement for the confidential prefix.
✓ C.The upload fails because the Deny statement explicitly denies access to the confidential prefix.
D.The upload fails because the policy is malformed.
Why C: The correct answer is C because the IAM policy includes an explicit Deny statement for s3:PutObject on the `confidential` prefix, which overrides any Allow statements. AWS IAM evaluates policies with explicit Denies taking precedence over Allows, so the upload to `s3://my-bucket/confidential/report.pdf` is blocked regardless of the Allow statement on the bucket.
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This DVA-C02 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 DVA-C02 exam.
Question Discussion
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