MLS-C01 Data Engineering Practice Question
A data scientist wants to query a dataset stored in Amazon S3 using standard SQL without provisioning any servers. The dataset is in CSV format and is updated daily. Which AWS service should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse Amazon Athena with Amazon Redshift Spectrum, but Redshift Spectrum still requires a provisioned Redshift cluster, whereas Athena is truly serverless and directly queries S3 without any infrastructure.
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
✓
Amazon Athena
Amazon Athena is a serverless interactive query service that allows you to query data directly from Amazon S3 using standard SQL without provisioning any servers. It is ideal for querying CSV datasets that are updated daily because it supports schema-on-read, meaning you can define the table schema at query time without loading or transforming the data beforehand.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Amazon Athena
Why this is correct
Athena is serverless and supports SQL queries on S3 data.
- ✗
Amazon Redshift
Why it's wrong here
Redshift requires cluster provisioning and management.
- ✗
Amazon RDS
Why it's wrong here
RDS is a managed relational database, not for querying S3 directly.
- ✗
Amazon DynamoDB
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB is a NoSQL database, not for SQL queries on S3.
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 |
Go deeper
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.