SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design for new solutions. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 has attached the above bucket policy to an S3 bucket. The bucket is accessed by an application running on an EC2 instance in the same AWS account. The EC2 instance is in a private subnet and uses an S3 Gateway Endpoint (vpce-12345678) to access the bucket. The application is failing to get objects from the bucket. What is the most likely cause?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "most likely"
Why it matters: Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
Why wrong: The Allow statement requires the VPC endpoint, but the Deny statement does not depend on it. If the application uses the endpoint, the Allow is satisfied, but the Deny may still block if not HTTPS.
B
The bucket policy does not allow encryption in transit
Why wrong: The policy does enforce HTTPS via Deny, but that is not the issue; the issue is likely that the application is not using HTTPS.
C
The application is using HTTP instead of HTTPS
The Deny statement blocks requests without SecureTransport, i.e., HTTP. The application may be using HTTP.
D
The application is missing the required x-amz-server-side-encryption header
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The application is using HTTP instead of HTTPS
Option C is correct because the bucket policy likely includes a condition that denies requests not using HTTPS (i.e., `aws:SecureTransport`: false). The application is failing because it is using HTTP instead of HTTPS to access the S3 bucket, which violates the encryption-in-transit requirement enforced by the policy. Without HTTPS, the request is denied by the S3 service.
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.
✗
The application is not using the VPC endpoint
Why it's wrong here
The Allow statement requires the VPC endpoint, but the Deny statement does not depend on it. If the application uses the endpoint, the Allow is satisfied, but the Deny may still block if not HTTPS.
✗
The bucket policy does not allow encryption in transit
Why it's wrong here
The policy does enforce HTTPS via Deny, but that is not the issue; the issue is likely that the application is not using HTTPS.
✓
The application is using HTTP instead of HTTPS
Why this is correct
The Deny statement blocks requests without SecureTransport, i.e., HTTP. The application may be using HTTP.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "most likely" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
The application is missing the required x-amz-server-side-encryption header
Why it's wrong here
No such requirement in the policy.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse encryption in transit (HTTPS) with encryption at rest (SSE headers) or assume that using a VPC Gateway Endpoint automatically secures the connection, when in fact the bucket policy's `aws:SecureTransport` condition independently enforces HTTPS.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
S3 bucket policies can enforce HTTPS using the `aws:SecureTransport` condition key, which evaluates to `false` when HTTP is used. The S3 Gateway Endpoint uses private IPs and does not inherently enforce HTTPS; the policy must explicitly require it. In practice, many organizations combine VPC Endpoint policies with bucket policies to enforce both network-level and transport-level security, and misconfiguring the protocol (HTTP vs HTTPS) is a common cause of access failures.
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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Visual reference
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
Storage Class
Min Duration
Retrieval
Use Case
S3 Standard
None
Immediate
Frequently accessed data
S3 Standard-IA
30 days
Immediate
Infrequent access, rapid retrieval
S3 One Zone-IA
30 days
Immediate
Non-critical infrequent data
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
None
Immediate–hours
Unknown or changing access patterns
S3 Glacier Instant
90 days
Milliseconds
Archive with instant retrieval
S3 Glacier Flexible
90 days
Minutes–hours
Archive, flexible retrieval
S3 Glacier Deep Archive
180 days
Hours
Long-term compliance archive
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.
Design for New Solutions — This question tests Design for New Solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: The application is using HTTP instead of HTTPS — Option C is correct because the bucket policy likely includes a condition that denies requests not using HTTPS (i.e., `aws:SecureTransport`: false). The application is failing because it is using HTTP instead of HTTPS to access the S3 bucket, which violates the encryption-in-transit requirement enforced by the policy. Without HTTPS, the request is denied by the S3 service.
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: "most likely". Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
This SAP-C02 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 SAP-C02 exam.
Question Discussion
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
Sign in to join the discussion.