DP-900 Describe core data concepts Practice Question
A marketing company collects data from social media feeds including text posts, images, and videos. The data arrives in various formats with no fixed structure or schema. This type of data is best described as:
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse semi-structured data (e.g., JSON with tags) with unstructured data, but the key differentiator is the complete absence of any schema or metadata markers in the described social media feeds.
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
✓
C) Unstructured data
Unstructured data lacks a predefined data model or schema, making it ideal for storing text posts, images, and videos that arrive in varied formats. Unlike structured or semi-structured data, unstructured data cannot be easily organized into rows and columns or parsed with tags, which is why option C is correct for this scenario.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A) Structured data
Why it's wrong here
Structured data assumes a fixed schema with well-defined rows and columns, where every field has a consistent data type and semantic meaning. Social media posts do not conform to that rigid table format because the number and type of attributes vary wildly from post to post. Treating a raw social media feed as structured data would require extensive transformation before any tabular processing could occur.
- ✗
B) Semi-structured data
Why it's wrong here
Semi-structured data, such as JSON or XML, uses tags, keys, or markers to provide a lightweight organizational framework, even if the underlying values vary. While social media APIs often deliver a JSON envelope containing metadata like timestamps and user IDs, the primary text blocks, images, and video blobs inside that envelope are not meaningfully structured by those tags. As a result, the raw feed itself lacks the consistent field organization that would classify it as semi-structured.
- ✓
C) Unstructured data
Why this is correct
Unstructured data has no predefined schema or data model, consisting primarily of free-form text, images, videos, and audio. Social media feeds are a classic example because posts combine casual text, photographs, hashtags, links, and other media with no enforced structure. This makes them ideal for schema-on-read analytics and storage in data lakes rather than in relational databases.
- ✗
D) Relational data
Why it's wrong here
Relational data is a specific subset of structured data stored in tables with defined relationships, primary keys, and foreign keys. Although a social media platform might store user profiles and connections in a relational database, the raw feed of collected posts is not itself relational. The feed lacks the normalized table structures, fixed columns, and key-based relationships that define relational data.
Go deeper
Related to this question
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Data Roles and Core Concepts
Key term
Data
Data is raw, unprocessed information, like numbers, words, or measurements, that can be stored, processed, and analyzed by computers.
Key term
Semi-structured data
Semi-structured data is information that has some organizational tags or markers but does not fit into a strict table format like a spreadsheet row and column.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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