PL-300 Prepare the data Practice Question
You are preparing data for a Power BI report. The source data contains a column 'FullName' with values like 'John Doe'. You need to split this column into 'FirstName' and 'LastName' using Power Query. The transformation should be repeatable and not dependent on the number of spaces. What is the best approach?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates choose 'Split Column by Delimiter' with the default 'Left-most delimiter' (which splits at the first space) or 'Extract Text After Delimiter', not realizing that names with multiple spaces require the right-most delimiter to correctly separate the last name from the rest.
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
✓
Use 'Split Column by Delimiter' and choose 'Right-most delimiter'.
Using 'Split Column by Delimiter' with 'Right-most delimiter' ensures that the split occurs at the last space in the FullName column, which reliably separates the first name from the last name even if there are multiple spaces (e.g., 'John Michael Doe' would yield 'John Michael' as FirstName and 'Doe' as LastName). This approach is repeatable and does not depend on a fixed number of spaces, making it robust for varying name formats.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use 'Split Column by Number of Characters' with a fixed position.
Why it's wrong here
Using 'Split Column by Number of Characters' with a fixed position assumes every full name has exactly the same character length, which is never true for real-world name data. The operation applies a constant width from the start or end of the string, so it cannot adapt to variable-length names; for example, 'Ana De Armas' and 'Chris Evans' have different lengths, and a fixed cut would slice through a first name or the last name incorrectly. This method lacks any word-boundary awareness, making it fundamentally unsuitable for isolating a surname.
- ✓
Use 'Split Column by Delimiter' and choose 'Right-most delimiter'.
Why this is correct
Choosing 'Split Column by Delimiter' with the 'Right-most delimiter' option is correct because it targets the final space in the name, separating the last name from all preceding text. This works reliably for variable-length strings because it does not depend on character counts or the number of spaces; even 'Mary Ann Jones' splits into 'Mary Ann' and 'Jones' as two columns. Power Query executes this by treating the last delimiter occurrence as the split point, which is exactly what is needed to isolate the surname.
- ✗
Use 'Replace Values' to replace space with a comma.
Why it's wrong here
The 'Replace Values' operation is a find-and-replace transformation that swaps every space for a comma within the existing cell, leaving the column structure completely unchanged. After this operation, a name like 'John Smith' becomes 'John,Smith' as a single comma-delimited text value, not two separate columns. You would still need a subsequent split step to actually divide the data, and the comma replacement itself introduces a new delimiter without accomplishing the required column separation.
- ✗
Use 'Extract Text After Delimiter' with a space.
Why it's wrong here
'Extract Text After Delimiter' only returns the substring that appears after the first occurrence of the delimiter, not the last. For example, applying it with a space to 'John Paul Smith' would yield 'Paul Smith' instead of the intended surname 'Smith', because it stops at the first space it finds. Furthermore, this action creates a single new column containing the extracted portion while leaving the original untouched, so it neither isolates the last name nor splits the data into two separate fields as required.
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