200-901 Understanding and Using APIs Practice Question
A developer is using the Meraki Dashboard API and receives a 429 Too Many Requests error. The API documentation states a rate limit of 5 calls per second. What is the best practice to handle this?
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
✓
Implement exponential backoff and honor the Retry-After header.
Implementing exponential backoff with retry-after headers is the recommended approach for rate-limited APIs. Ignoring or simply retrying immediately may worsen the situation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Ignore the error and retry immediately.
Why it's wrong here
Retrying immediately will likely result in continued 429 errors.
- ✗
Use a different API key to bypass the limit.
Why it's wrong here
Using a different API key violates terms of service and does not address the underlying issue.
- ✗
Increase the number of concurrent requests to exhaust the rate limit quickly.
Why it's wrong here
This will likely cause more 429 errors and is counterproductive.
- ✓
Implement exponential backoff and honor the Retry-After header.
Why this is correct
Exponential backoff with retry headers is the standard rate-limiting handling technique.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 200-901 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco 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 200-901 exam.