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MLA-C01 Practice Question: A machine learning engineer needs to split a…

A machine learning engineer needs to split a dataset for binary classification where the positive class represents only 2% of the data. Which data splitting strategy ensures that both training and test sets maintain the same class proportion as the original dataset?

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

Stratified sampling based on the target variable

Stratified splitting preserves the original class distribution in each split, which is critical for imbalanced datasets.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

  • Stratified sampling based on the target variable

    Why this is correct

    Stratified sampling ensures each fold retains the same class proportion as the full dataset.

  • Time-series split respecting the timestamp order

    Why it's wrong here

    Time-series split is for temporal data, not class imbalance.

  • Simple random split with a 80/20 ratio

    Why it's wrong here

    Random split may result in test sets with zero positive samples due to the rare class.

  • K-fold cross-validation without stratification

    Why it's wrong here

    Without stratification, some folds may have no positive samples.

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