Google PCA Practice Question: Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture
This PCA practice question tests your understanding of designing and planning a cloud solution architecture. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A media company uses Cloud CDN with an HTTP(S) Load Balancer to serve video content from Cloud Storage. After a month, they notice increased costs due to high cache miss rates. Analysis shows that many requests include a unique query parameter for analytics tracking. What is the most effective way to improve cache hit ratio while preserving analytics data?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Configure a custom cache key on the backend bucket to exclude the analytics parameter
When query parameters are unique per request (like tracking IDs), they cause cache misses. The solution is to define a cache key that ignores that specific parameter, so the same content is cached once. Setting a custom cache key on the backend bucket is the correct approach. Disabling CDN or increasing TTL does not solve the parameter issue. Removing caching altogether would hurt performance and increase egress costs.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✓
Configure a custom cache key on the backend bucket to exclude the analytics parameter
Why this is correct
Excluding the analytics parameter from the cache key ensures all requests for the same content share one cache entry, increasing hit ratio.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Move the content to a different Cloud Storage bucket with no caching
Why it's wrong here
Removing caching would worsen performance and increase costs.
✗
Increase the minimum TTL on the backend bucket to 1 hour
Why it's wrong here
Longer TTL does not help because each unique query string still causes a distinct cache entry.
✗
Disable caching for requests with query parameters
Why it's wrong here
This would increase origin load and costs, not improve cache hit ratio.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
→Underline the problem statement mentally.
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this PCA question in full detail.
Identify which PCA exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture — This question tests Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Configure a custom cache key on the backend bucket to exclude the analytics parameter — When query parameters are unique per request (like tracking IDs), they cause cache misses. The solution is to define a cache key that ignores that specific parameter, so the same content is cached once. Setting a custom cache key on the backend bucket is the correct approach. Disabling CDN or increasing TTL does not solve the parameter issue. Removing caching altogether would hurt performance and increase egress costs.
What should I do if I get this PCA question wrong?
Identify which PCA exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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This PCA 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 PCA exam.
Question Discussion
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