SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of continuous improvement for existing solutions. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company runs a web application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application uses an Amazon RDS MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. During a recent load test, the application became unresponsive for several minutes. The monitoring shows that the RDS instance CPU utilization spiked to 100% during the test. The application reads and writes to the same database. Which design change would provide the BEST improvement in database scalability and reduce CPU contention?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "best"
Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create RDS read replicas for the DB instance and route read queries from the application to the replicas.
The correct answer is A because creating RDS read replicas offloads read queries from the primary DB instance, reducing CPU contention from read-heavy workloads. Since the application reads and writes to the same database, directing read traffic to replicas decreases the primary instance's CPU utilization, directly addressing the 100% CPU spike observed during the load test. This improves database scalability by distributing read operations horizontally without altering write capacity.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✓
Create RDS read replicas for the DB instance and route read queries from the application to the replicas.
Why this is correct
Read replicas offload read traffic, reducing CPU on the primary.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Configure an in-memory cache like Amazon ElastiCache to cache frequent queries.
Why it's wrong here
Caching reduces read load but not writes; still CPU contention may remain.
✗
Increase the instance size of the RDS DB instance to a larger instance type.
Why it's wrong here
Vertical scaling may help temporarily but is not as efficient as offloading reads.
✗
Enable Multi-AZ for the RDS instance to distribute the load across two instances.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ is for high availability, not read scaling.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Multi-AZ with read replicas, thinking Multi-AZ distributes read traffic, when in fact Multi-AZ only provides a standby replica for failover and does not serve read requests.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
RDS read replicas use asynchronous replication from the primary DB instance to one or more read-only copies, allowing SELECT queries to be routed to replicas via a separate endpoint. Under the hood, MySQL replication uses binary log (binlog) file-based replication, where the primary writes changes to its binlog and replicas apply those changes via the relay log. In a real-world scenario, if the application's read-to-write ratio is high (e.g., 80% reads, 20% writes), read replicas can absorb the majority of the query load, significantly reducing CPU and I/O on the primary instance. However, read replicas do not help with write scalability, as all writes must still go to the primary.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions — This question tests Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create RDS read replicas for the DB instance and route read queries from the application to the replicas. — The correct answer is A because creating RDS read replicas offloads read queries from the primary DB instance, reducing CPU contention from read-heavy workloads. Since the application reads and writes to the same database, directing read traffic to replicas decreases the primary instance's CPU utilization, directly addressing the 100% CPU spike observed during the load test. This improves database scalability by distributing read operations horizontally without altering write capacity.
What should I do if I get this SAP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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