DA0-002 Data Acquisition and Preparation Practice Question
A data analyst is preparing to acquire clickstream data from a web analytics platform via its REST API. The API returns paginated results with a maximum of 500 records per page and issues a short-lived bearer token that expires after one hour. The analyst needs to backfill six months of event data reliably. Which acquisition design is most appropriate?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is treating token expiry and pagination as separate concerns, when a robust backfill must handle both together with checkpointing.
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
✓
Request the maximum page size and loop through pages, refreshing the bearer token before expiry and persisting a cursor or timestamp checkpoint after each successful page.
The API imposes two constraints: pagination and short-lived authentication. The sound design respects both by using the largest allowed page, proactively refreshing the token, and checkpointing after each page so progress survives interruptions. This yields efficient, resumable, and duplicate-avoiding acquisition. Approaches that use tiny pages, single long requests, or full restarts on token expiry either trigger rate limits, cannot complete, or repeatedly re-download data.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use the API's default page size and restart the entire backfill from the first page whenever the token expires.
Why it's wrong here
Restarting from the first page after each token expiry repeatedly re-downloads already acquired data, wasting quota and time, and risks duplicate rows if writes are not idempotent. Default page size also increases the number of calls compared with the maximum. Without a checkpoint, progress is lost on every interruption, making a six-month backfill impractical under a one-hour token lifetime.
- ✓
Request the maximum page size and loop through pages, refreshing the bearer token before expiry and persisting a cursor or timestamp checkpoint after each successful page.
Why this is correct
Pagination with the maximum page size minimizes request count, token refresh prevents mid-run authentication failures, and a persisted checkpoint allows the job to resume without re-pulling data after an interruption. This design is resilient to the two stated constraints and avoids duplicate or missing records. Checkpointing on a timestamp or cursor also supports incremental runs beyond the initial backfill.
- ✗
Request one record per page to avoid hitting rate limits, and store the token in the script so it can be reused across runs.
Why it's wrong here
Requesting one record per page multiplies request volume enormously and is far more likely to trigger rate limiting, the opposite of the intent. Hard-coding or persisting the token also fails because it expires after one hour, so later runs would authenticate with a dead credential. This design is inefficient and fragile for a six-month backfill.
- ✗
Pull all data in a single long-running request and write the response to disk when the connection closes.
Why it's wrong here
A single request cannot exceed the page limit and would not return six months of events. Long-running connections are also prone to timeouts and cannot survive the one-hour token expiry. Writing only at the end means any failure loses the entire transfer. The API's pagination contract requires multiple requests, so this approach contradicts the documented behavior.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CompTIA exam blueprint
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