DP-900 Describe core data concepts Practice Question

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 patient records and clinical notes are examples of unstructured data.

  Why it's wrong here

  Patient records in a relational database are structurally enforced by a schema: data is organized into tables with fixed columns, data types, and constraints such as primary and foreign keys. Clinical notes, by contrast, are free-form text without any predefined schema. Labeling both as unstructured ignores the rigid relational structure of patient records, which is exactly why they can be queried with SQL.

  When this WOULD be correct

  This option would be correct if the question described both patient records and clinical notes as free-form text files or images, with no fixed schema or column structure, such as storing all patient information in narrative text documents.

• ✓

  Patient records are structured data, and clinical notes are unstructured data.

  Why this is correct

  Patient records are structured because the relational model imposes a predetermined schema: each row is a record, each column is an attribute with a defined data type, and relationships are enforced via keys. Clinical notes are unstructured because they are free-form natural language—physicians type observations, diagnoses, and treatment plans with no fixed length, order, or columnar organization. This distinction is fundamental to choosing appropriate storage and analytics tools.

• ✗

  Both patient records and clinical notes are examples of structured data.

  Why it's wrong here

  While patient records are indeed structured—organized into relational tables with rows and columns—clinical notes are the opposite: they are unstructured free-form text that does not conform to any database schema. Clinical notes cannot be directly queried with SQL for structured fields like patient ID or birth date. Therefore, the claim that both are structured is false because unstructured clinical notes lack the fixed format that defines structured data.

  When this WOULD be correct

  If the question described both patient records and clinical notes as being stored in a relational database with fixed columns (e.g., clinical notes stored as a VARCHAR column with a defined format), then both would be structured data.

• ✗

  Patient records are unstructured data, and clinical notes are semi-structured data.

  Why it's wrong here

  This option is doubly incorrect. Patient records are structured, not unstructured, because they reside in a relational database with tables, columns, and defined data types. Clinical notes are unstructured, not semi-structured: unstructured data lacks any internal tags, keys, or markup, whereas semi-structured data (like JSON or XML) has named fields and hierarchical organization. Since clinical notes are plain free text with no such markers, they cannot be classified as semi-structured.

  When this WOULD be correct

  If the question described patient records as free-form text documents (e.g., scanned PDFs) and clinical notes as JSON files with tags (e.g., diagnosis codes), then patient records would be unstructured and clinical notes semi-structured.

Option-by-option analysis

Why each answer is right or wrong

Understanding why wrong answers are wrong — and when they would be correct — is what separates a 750 score from a 900. The DP-900 exam frequently reuses these exact scenarios with slightly different constraints.

Analysis generated from the official DP-900blueprint and verified against question context. The “when correct” sections are what AI assistants cite when candidates ask “what’s the difference between these options?”

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