This MLS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data engineering. 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.
A company uses AWS Glue to catalog data in S3. Data is partitioned by year, month, day. The Glue crawler runs daily but sometimes misses new partitions. What should be done to ensure all partitions are cataloged?
Use a custom classifier to detect partition patterns.
Why wrong: Classifiers detect schema, not partitions.
Increase the crawler schedule to run every hour.
Why wrong: More frequent runs may still miss partitions.
Configure the crawler to update all partitions on each run.
Why wrong: Not a supported setting.
Enable partition indexing in the Glue table properties.
Partition indexing helps Athena query without full scan.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Enable partition indexing in the Glue table properties.
Option D is correct because enabling partition indexing in the Glue table properties allows the Glue Data Catalog to automatically discover and register new partitions as they are added to S3, without relying solely on crawler runs. This feature uses the Hive-style partition structure (e.g., year=2024/month=01/day=15) to index partitions, ensuring that even if the crawler misses a run, new partitions are still cataloged via the partition index.
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.
Use a custom classifier to detect partition patterns.
Why it's wrong here
Classifiers detect schema, not partitions.
Increase the crawler schedule to run every hour.
Why it's wrong here
More frequent runs may still miss partitions.
Configure the crawler to update all partitions on each run.
Why it's wrong here
Not a supported setting.
Enable partition indexing in the Glue table properties.
Why this is correct
Partition indexing helps Athena query without full scan.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often assume increasing crawler frequency or using custom classifiers will solve partition discovery issues, but the correct solution is to leverage Glue's built-in partition indexing feature, which decouples partition discovery from crawler runs.
Detailed technical explanation
Partition indexing in AWS Glue works by creating a separate index table that tracks partition metadata, allowing queries (e.g., via Athena or Glue ETL) to quickly locate partitions without scanning the entire table. This index is automatically updated when new partitions are added to the S3 location, provided the table has the 'partition_index' property enabled and the data follows the expected Hive-style partition pattern. In real-world scenarios, this is critical for streaming or near-real-time data ingestion where partitions are added frequently and crawler schedules cannot keep up.
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.
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FAQ
Data Engineering — This question tests Data Engineering — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Enable partition indexing in the Glue table properties. — Option D is correct because enabling partition indexing in the Glue table properties allows the Glue Data Catalog to automatically discover and register new partitions as they are added to S3, without relying solely on crawler runs. This feature uses the Hive-style partition structure (e.g., year=2024/month=01/day=15) to index partitions, ensuring that even if the crawler misses a run, new partitions are still cataloged via the partition index.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This MLS-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 MLS-C01 exam.
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