ISC2 CC Practice Question: Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Incident Response
A company’s disaster recovery plan specifies an RTO of 4 hours and an RPO of 1 hour for its critical database. The database is backed up every hour using incremental backups. After a catastrophic failure, restoration takes 3 hours, but the database must be rolled forward using transaction logs. The total time to make the database fully operational is 5 hours. Which statement is correct?
⚠ Common exam trap
CC often tests the distinction between RTO and RPO, and candidates may incorrectly assume that restoration time alone defines RTO, ignoring additional steps like transaction log roll-forward.
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
✓
RTO is exceeded but RPO is likely met
The RTO is 4 hours, but the total time to make the database fully operational is 5 hours, so RTO is exceeded. The RPO is 1 hour, and backups are taken every hour; the data loss is at most 1 hour of transactions, so RPO is likely met. Therefore, RTO is exceeded but RPO is likely met.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Both RTO and RPO are exceeded
Why it's wrong here
RPO is likely met, so only RTO is exceeded.
- ✗
RPO is exceeded but RTO is met
Why it's wrong here
Recovery completes at 5 hours against a 4-hour RTO, so RTO is breached; the 1-hour backup interval satisfies the 1-hour RPO. It tempts because the hourly backups appear to guarantee the RPO, but the roll-forward time pushes total restoration past the RTO, so RTO is exceeded, not met.
- ✗
Both RTO and RPO are met
Why it's wrong here
RTO is not met because total time is 5 hours, exceeding 4 hours.
- ✓
RTO is exceeded but RPO is likely met
Why this is correct
Total recovery of five hours exceeds the four-hour RTO, so that target is breached. Hourly incremental backups with transaction-log rollforward cap data loss near one hour, so the one-hour RPO is likely satisfied despite the overrun.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Key term
Disaster recovery plan
A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a documented, structured approach that outlines how an organization can quickly resume critical IT systems and operations after a disruptive event.
Key term
Disaster recovery
Disaster recovery is a set of policies, procedures, and tools that help an organization restore critical IT systems and data after a disruptive event.
About these practice questions
One of 989 original CC practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISC2 exam blueprint
This CC practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 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 CC exam.