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MLA-C01 Practice Question: A company has a batch transform job in Amazon…
A company has a batch transform job in Amazon SageMaker that processes large datasets every night. Recently, the job has been failing sporadically with an out-of-memory error. The data size has not increased. What is the MOST likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates assume out-of-memory errors always mean the instance is too small or data has grown, ignoring the possibility of a software defect like a memory leak that manifests over time without any change in data volume.
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
✓
The custom inference code has a memory leak that gradually consumes available memory.
A memory leak in custom inference code would cause gradual memory consumption over time, eventually leading to out-of-memory errors even if the dataset size remains unchanged. SageMaker batch transform jobs run inference on each record independently, so a leak that accumulates across records (e.g., not releasing tensors or file handles) would cause sporadic failures as the job processes more data.
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 custom inference code has a memory leak that gradually consumes available memory.
Why this is correct
A memory leak can cause OOM even with same data size.
- ✗
The data distribution has shifted, causing different memory usage patterns.
Why it's wrong here
While possible, it's less likely than a code issue; OOM typically from code.
- ✗
The instance type is not large enough to handle the dataset.
Why it's wrong here
Data size hasn't increased, so if it worked before, instance type is sufficient.
- ✗
The batch transform input data has increased in size.
Why it's wrong here
The question states data size has not increased.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This MLA-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 MLA-C01 exam.