PDE Maintaining and Automating Data Workloads Practice Question
Which BigQuery feature allows you to estimate the cost of a query before running it, by returning the number of bytes that would be processed?
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
✓
--dry_run flag
The --dry_run flag in the BigQuery CLI or the dryRun parameter in the API simulates the query and returns the bytes processed without executing it, allowing cost estimation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
EXPLAIN statement
Why it's wrong here
EXPLAIN shows the query plan, not bytes processed.
- ✗
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.JOBS
Why it's wrong here
This shows job metadata after execution, not before.
- ✓
--dry_run flag
Why this is correct
dry_run returns bytes processed without running the query.
- ✗
Slot estimator
Why it's wrong here
Slot estimator estimates required slots, not bytes.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This PDE question is part of Courseiva's 890-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 by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.