200-901 Understanding and Using APIs Practice Question
A developer is writing an integration that calls a REST API which returns a large collection of items across many pages. The API documentation states that the response includes a 'next' link when more results are available. Which approach correctly retrieves the complete collection?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that a larger timeout or a repeated identical request will surface more records, when only following the server-provided next link advances the cursor.
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
✓
Follow the 'next' link in each response and request it repeatedly until no 'next' link is present.
When an API advertises a 'next' link, the intended traversal is to request that link and repeat until the response no longer includes one. This respects server-controlled cursors and guarantees every page is visited. Assuming a single response is complete, replaying the identical request, or extending timeouts all fail because none of them advances through the paginated result set.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Request the collection once and assume all items are returned in a single response.
Why it's wrong here
APIs that paginate deliberately cap the number of items per response to protect performance and payload size. Assuming a single response contains the entire collection means the integration will silently miss records beyond the first page. Because the documentation explicitly mentions a 'next' link, ignoring pagination would produce incomplete results and is not a correct approach.
- ✗
Increase the request timeout so the server returns all pages in one response.
Why it's wrong here
Timeouts govern how long the client waits for a reply, not how much data the server includes. Pagination is a server-side design decision driven by payload limits and query cost, so a longer timeout cannot force additional items into a single response. This option misunderstands the cause of the truncated result and would not retrieve the complete collection.
- ✓
Follow the 'next' link in each response and request it repeatedly until no 'next' link is present.
Why this is correct
Following the 'next' link provided by the API is the documented way to traverse pages, because the server controls how subsequent pages are addressed and may use opaque cursors. Repeating this until the response contains no 'next' link guarantees the entire collection is retrieved. This approach adapts to the server's cursor scheme rather than guessing page parameters, making it the correct choice.
- ✗
Send the same request repeatedly and merge the responses until the total item count stops growing.
Why it's wrong here
Repeating an identical request returns the same first page each time, so the item count will never grow and the loop would either terminate immediately or run forever. This approach does not advance through the collection and cannot retrieve later pages. It also wastes API calls and may trigger rate limiting, so it does not correctly retrieve the full collection.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This 200-901 question is part of Courseiva's 975-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Cisco exam blueprint
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.