PCD Building and testing applications Practice Question
This PCD practice question tests your understanding of building and testing applications. 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.
Network Topology
Refer to the exhibit. You run the above command to build and push a Docker image to Container Registry. The build fails with an error: 'denied: Unauthenticated access'. What should you do to resolve this?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Grant the Cloud Build service account the Storage Object Admin role on the project
The error 'denied: Unauthenticated access' indicates that the Cloud Build service account does not have permission to push images to Container Registry. By default, Cloud Build uses the Cloud Build service account (service-[PROJECT_NUMBER]@cloudbuild.gserviceaccount.com) to execute builds. Granting the Storage Object Admin role (roles/storage.admin) to this service account provides the necessary permissions to write objects (Docker image layers) to the Container Registry bucket in Cloud Storage, resolving the authentication failure.
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.
✓
Grant the Cloud Build service account the Storage Object Admin role on the project
Why this is correct
This allows push to Container Registry, which is backed by Cloud Storage.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Grant the Cloud Build service account the Project Editor role
Why it's wrong here
Project Editor is too broad; prefer a specific role.
✗
Grant the Compute Engine default service account the Storage Object Creator role
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Build uses a different service account: [project-number]@cloudbuild.gserviceaccount.com.
✗
Run gcloud auth login as the project owner before submitting the build
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Build uses its own service account, not the developer's credentials.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Cisco often tests the distinction between the Cloud Build service account and the Compute Engine default service account, leading candidates to incorrectly choose Option C because they confuse the service account used by Cloud Build with the one used by Compute Engine instances.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Container Registry stores Docker images in a multi-regional Cloud Storage bucket named gs://[PROJECT-ID].gcr.io. When Cloud Build pushes an image, it uses the Cloud Build service account to perform a storage.objects.create operation on that bucket. The Storage Object Admin role includes the storage.objects.create and storage.objects.delete permissions, which are required for pushing and overwriting image tags. Without these permissions, the Container Registry API returns a 403 error, which is surfaced as 'denied: Unauthenticated access' because the service account lacks the necessary IAM binding on the bucket.
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.
TExam Day Tips
→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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Building and testing applications — This question tests Building and testing applications — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Grant the Cloud Build service account the Storage Object Admin role on the project — The error 'denied: Unauthenticated access' indicates that the Cloud Build service account does not have permission to push images to Container Registry. By default, Cloud Build uses the Cloud Build service account (service-[PROJECT_NUMBER]@cloudbuild.gserviceaccount.com) to execute builds. Granting the Storage Object Admin role (roles/storage.admin) to this service account provides the necessary permissions to write objects (Docker image layers) to the Container Registry bucket in Cloud Storage, resolving the authentication failure.
What should I do if I get this PCD question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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