MLS-C01 Modeling Practice Question
A machine learning team is training a deep learning model on Amazon SageMaker and notices that the training loss is decreasing but the validation loss is increasing. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
The MLS-C01 exam often tests the distinction between overfitting and high learning rate by presenting a scenario where training loss decreases but validation loss increases, and candidates mistakenly attribute it to a learning rate that is too high, not recognizing that a high learning rate would cause both losses to diverge or oscillate.
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
✓
Overfitting the training data
When training loss continues to decrease while validation loss increases, the model is memorizing the training data rather than learning generalizable patterns. This is the classic symptom of overfitting, where the model's capacity exceeds what is needed for the underlying data distribution, causing it to fit noise in the training set. In Amazon SageMaker, this can be observed by monitoring the validation loss metric during training jobs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Vanishing gradients
Why it's wrong here
Vanishing gradients would prevent training loss from decreasing.
- ✓
Overfitting the training data
Why this is correct
Overfitting occurs when model learns noise, causing validation loss to increase after a point.
- ✗
Learning rate is too high
Why it's wrong here
High learning rate would cause training loss to fluctuate or diverge.
- ✗
Underfitting the training data
Why it's wrong here
Underfitting would show high training loss.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This MLS-C01 question is part of Courseiva's 1,672-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.