- A
Create a separate reservation for interactive queries with a higher priority assignment.
Creating separate reservations for interactive and batch workloads allows you to control slot allocation and prioritize interactive queries.
- B
Reduce the baseline slots to 200 and rely solely on autoscaling.
Why wrong: Reducing baseline slots could degrade interactive performance when autoscaling is delayed.
- C
Switch to on-demand pricing to eliminate slot contention.
Why wrong: On-demand pricing removes slot management but may increase costs and still have concurrent quota limits.
- D
Set the autoscaling max to 1000 slots for batch jobs.
Why wrong: BigQuery does not allow per-job-type autoscaling limits within a single reservation.
Question 166 of 1,000
PDE Maintaining and Automating Data Workloads Practice Question
This PDE practice question tests your understanding of maintaining and automating data workloads. 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.
You manage a BigQuery reservation with 500 baseline slots and autoscaling up to 2000 slots. Your team runs a mix of interactive queries and batch load jobs. During peak hours, you notice that interactive queries are throttled when autoscaling slots are consumed by long-running batch loads. How can you ensure interactive queries get priority access to slots?
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
✓
Create a separate reservation for interactive queries with a higher priority assignment.
Option A is correct because BigQuery reservations allow you to create separate reservations for different workloads (e.g., interactive queries vs. batch loads) and assign them different priority levels. By creating a dedicated reservation for interactive queries with a higher priority, you ensure that interactive queries get preferential access to slots, even when autoscaling slots are consumed by long-running batch jobs. This directly addresses the contention issue without reducing overall capacity.
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.
- ✓
Create a separate reservation for interactive queries with a higher priority assignment.
Why this is correct
Creating separate reservations for interactive and batch workloads allows you to control slot allocation and prioritize interactive queries.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Reduce the baseline slots to 200 and rely solely on autoscaling.
Why it's wrong here
Reducing baseline slots could degrade interactive performance when autoscaling is delayed.
- ✗
Switch to on-demand pricing to eliminate slot contention.
Why it's wrong here
On-demand pricing removes slot management but may increase costs and still have concurrent quota limits.
- ✗
Set the autoscaling max to 1000 slots for batch jobs.
Why it's wrong here
BigQuery does not allow per-job-type autoscaling limits within a single reservation.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Cisco often tests the misconception that autoscaling alone or reducing baseline slots can solve priority issues, but the key is that without separate reservations and explicit priority assignments, all jobs compete equally for the same pool of slots.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
BigQuery reservations use a hierarchical slot management model where you can create multiple reservations (e.g., 'interactive' and 'batch') and assign each a baseline and optional autoscaling. Priority is enforced at the job level: when slots are contended, jobs with higher priority (e.g., 'INTERACTIVE') are scheduled before lower-priority jobs (e.g., 'BATCH'). Under the hood, BigQuery uses a fair scheduling algorithm that respects these priorities, ensuring that interactive queries are not starved by long-running batch loads. In a real-world scenario, you might assign 300 baseline slots to the interactive reservation and 200 to batch, with autoscaling up to 2000 total, and set the interactive reservation's priority to 'HIGH' to guarantee responsiveness.
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 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.
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.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this PDE question test?
Maintaining and Automating Data Workloads — This question tests Maintaining and Automating Data Workloads — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create a separate reservation for interactive queries with a higher priority assignment. — Option A is correct because BigQuery reservations allow you to create separate reservations for different workloads (e.g., interactive queries vs. batch loads) and assign them different priority levels. By creating a dedicated reservation for interactive queries with a higher priority, you ensure that interactive queries get preferential access to slots, even when autoscaling slots are consumed by long-running batch jobs. This directly addresses the contention issue without reducing overall capacity.
What should I do if I get this PDE 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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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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.
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