PDE Maintaining and Automating Data Workloads Practice Question
A data engineer is building a batch pipeline that runs daily using Cloud Composer. The pipeline has three tasks: extract data from Cloud Storage, transform data using Dataflow, and load the transformed data into BigQuery. The engineer wants to ensure that the Dataflow job only starts after the extraction task completes successfully, and the load task only starts after the Dataflow job finishes. How should the engineer define the task dependencies in the Airflow DAG?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common misconception is that multiple tasks can be chained in parallel with a single bitshift operator, leading candidates to choose Option A, which incorrectly allows the load task to start before the Dataflow job completes. In Airflow, sequential dependencies are defined by chaining tasks with '>>' in order.
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
✓
extract >> transform >> load
Airflow uses the bitshift operator (>>) to define task dependencies in a linear sequence. The DAG must ensure that the extract task completes before the transform task starts, and the transform task completes before the load task starts. This is achieved by chaining the tasks in order: extract >> transform >> load, which enforces the required sequential execution.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
extract >> [transform, load]
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: This makes transform and load run in parallel after extract, so load doesn't wait for transform.
- ✗
transform >> extract >> load
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: This would start transform before extract, which violates the requirement.
- ✓
extract >> transform >> load
Why this is correct
Correct: This defines sequential dependencies: extract before transform, transform before load.
- ✗
extract >> load >> transform
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: This would start load before transform, which is not allowed.
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This PDE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Google Cloud 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 PDE exam.