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MLA-C01 Practice Question: Using SageMaker to train a model for image…
A company is using SageMaker to train a model for image classification. They have a dataset of 10,000 images. They use SageMaker's built-in image classification algorithm with transfer learning. During training, they notice that the training job completes successfully but the model accuracy on the validation set is very low (~30%). They suspect the model is underfitting. Which action is most likely to improve accuracy?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse underfitting with overfitting and choose to reduce batch size or change the algorithm, when the correct diagnostic for underfitting is to increase training time or model capacity, not to reduce data exposure.
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
✓
Increase the number of training epochs.
Underfitting occurs when the model has not learned enough from the training data, often because training was stopped too early. Increasing the number of training epochs allows the model more iterations to converge to a better solution, which directly addresses underfitting by giving the optimizer more time to minimize the loss function.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use a different algorithm.
Why it's wrong here
The built-in algorithm is appropriate; underfitting is not algorithm-specific.
- ✗
Add more layers to the model architecture.
Why it's wrong here
Adding layers increases capacity but may cause overfitting with limited data.
- ✗
Use a smaller batch size.
Why it's wrong here
Smaller batch size can improve convergence but may not resolve underfitting.
- ✓
Increase the number of training epochs.
Why this is correct
Correct: More epochs allow the model to learn patterns better, reducing underfitting.
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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.