DP-203 Azure Data Engineer Associate Sample Questions for 2026 Exam

Boost your confidence for the DP-203 Azure Data Engineer Associate certification with this tailored set of sample questions and practice resources. Each question is aligned with Microsoft’s latest 2025 exam objectives and covers real-world scenarios in data integration, transformation, and analytics using Azure Synapse, Data Factory, Data Lake, and SQL services. Whether you're reviewing concepts or simulating the real exam experience, these DP-203 sample questions will help you assess your readiness and bridge knowledge gaps. Prepare smartly with hands-on resources designed for aspiring Azure data professionals.

DP-203 Azure Data Engineer Associate Sample Questions List :

1. When designing a multi-region Cosmos DB account with session consistency, which configuration ensures the lowest RTO during regional failover without data loss?

1. Single write region with manual failover

2. Multi-region writes with automatic failover

3. Single write region with service-managed failover

4. Multi-region writes with manual failover

2. When implementing cross-tenant data sharing via Azure Data Share, what ensures data residency compliance?

1. Private endpoint configuration

2. Source-defined export settings

3. Snapshot execution region

4. Recipient storage location

3. For a Parquet dataset in ADLS Gen2 receiving 5 TB/hour streaming IoT data, which partitioning strategy optimizes query performance for time-range filters?

1. Partition by device ID Hive-style

2. Hourly partition on event timestamp

3. Round-robin partitioning

4. Hash partitioning on sensor type

4. Which Blob Storage feature reduces latency for Spark on Synapse accessing hot-tier data?

1. Archive tier migration

2. Premium block blobs

3. Immutable storage

4. Object replication

5. In Synapse serverless SQL pool, what happens when querying a Delta Lake table with ZORDER applied on the "customer_id" column?

1. Automatic statistics update in metastore

2. Predicate pushdown to storage layer

3. Data skipping via zone maps

4. In-memory caching of frequent segments

6. In a Cosmos DB analytical store, what determines the partition key for auto-synced data?

1. Inherited from transactional store logical partition key

2. Configurable during Synapse link setup

3. Automatic hash distribution

4. Fixed by Azure at container level

7. Which Blob Storage feature reduces egress costs by 50% for analytics workloads accessing cold-tier data in North Europe from a Synapse cluster in West Europe?

1. Geo-redundant storage (GRS)

2. Azure CDN integration

3. Object replication to West Europe

4. RA-GRS read access

8. Which command forces materialization of a Spark dataframe before writing to Delta Lake?

1. .cache()

2. .checkpoint()

3. .persist()

4. .materialize()

9. When implementing columnstore indexes in Synapse dedicated SQL pool, which compression technique dynamically adapts to data patterns without manual intervention?

1. PAGE compression

2. Reorganize index with COMPRESS_ALL option

3. Automatic adaptive compression

4. Rowgroup-level dictionary encoding

10. What happens when you enable "Version Level Immutability" on an ADLS Gen2 container?

1. All blob versions become WORM-protected

2. Only current version is immutable

3. Auto-deletes versions after retention period

4. Disables soft delete functionality

11. What's the primary advantage of using Delta Lake's `OPTIMIZE ZORDER BY` command on a timestamp column in ADLS Gen2?

1. Reduces storage footprint through compression

2. Accelerates point-in-time queries via data clustering

3. Enables cross-region replication for disaster recovery

4. Automatically partitions data into hourly chunks

12. For Synapse serverless querying CSV files, which configuration avoids schema inference errors?

1. OPENROWSET with explicit schema

2. CETAS with inferred types

3. Automatic schema detection

4. Schema drift settings

13. For a Polybase query loading 10TB from Blob Storage to Synapse, which credential configuration provides most secure access?

1. Shared Access Signature (SAS) token

2. Storage account key

3. Managed Identity

4. Azure AD user credentials

14. Which Cosmos DB feature reduces RU consumption for point reads by 80%?

1. Optimistic concurrency control

2. Session consistency

3. Direct TCP mode

4. Point read API

15. Which Cosmos DB indexing policy optimizes storage costs for an IoT telemetry system querying only by deviceId and timestamp?

1. Composite index on (deviceId, timestamp)

2. Spatial index on geolocation fields

3. Full range indexing on all properties

4. No indexing with manual queries

16. What's the impact of setting `spark.sql.parquet.mergeSchema=true` in Delta Lake?

1. Auto-resolves schema conflicts during writes

2. Enables schema evolution tracking

3. Forces schema validation on read

4. Disables partition discovery

17. When implementing column-level security in Synapse dedicated SQL pool, which feature prevents unauthorized users from viewing masked data?

1. Dynamic Data Masking policies

2. Row-Level Security filters

3. Transparent Data Encryption

4. Always Encrypted with secure enclaves

18. Which authentication method allows cross-tenant Synapse to ADLS access without secret sharing?

1. Service principal with client secret

2. Managed identity federation

3. SAS token delegation

4. Access key passthrough

19. What's the effect of enabling hierarchical namespace on an existing Blob Storage account containing 50TB of Parquet files?

1. Automatic conversion to Delta Lake format

2. Loss of access tier settings for existing blobs

3. Immediate 40% storage cost reduction

4. POSIX-compliant directory operations

20. When using Change Feed in Cosmos DB for incremental loads, what ensures exactly-once processing?

1. Session token persistence

2. ETag checkpointing

3. Lease container partitioning

4. Change Feed processor

21. Which compression algorithm provides the best query performance for analytical workloads in Synapse serverless SQL pools?

1. GZIP

2. SNAPPY

3. LZO

4. BZIP2

22. Which Synapse workload management feature prevents runaway queries?

1. Resource classes

2. Workload groups

3. Query importance

4. Request limits

23. For a slowly changing dimension in Synapse, which table distribution strategy minimizes data movement during SCD Type 2 merges?

1. Hash-distributed on business key

2. Round-robin distribution

3. Replicated table

4. Range-distributed on timestamp

24. What's the purpose of V-Order in Parquet writes from Synapse Spark?

1. Enhanced compression dictionary sorting

2. Vectorized execution optimization

3. Z-Order equivalent for single columns

4. Page-level checksum validation

25. For GDPR data subject requests, which ADLS feature automates PII deletion?

1. Lifecycle management rules

2. Immutable storage holds

3. Object tagging with filters

4. Access policy conditions

26. Which feature enables schema enforcement when streaming into Delta Lake from Azure Event Hubs?

1. Auto Loader with schema inference

2. Delta Lake schema validation

3. Event Hubs schema registry

4. Stream Analytics JSON parser

27. When configuring Azure Data Lake Analytics (legacy), what determines parallel job execution?

1. AU allocation per job

2. Degree of parallelism setting

3. Vertex count in U-SQL script

4. Data partitioning scheme

28. What is the primary purpose of materialized views in Azure Synapse serverless SQL pool?

1. Pre-aggregate frequently queried data

2. Automatically index foreign keys

3. Replace fact table partitioning

4. Enable cross-database queries

29. Which feature allows querying Parquet files in Blob Storage without data movement?

1. Synapse serverless SQL pool

2. Data Lake Analytics

3. PolyBase in Azure SQL DB

4. Databricks Runtime

30. When implementing a medallion architecture in ADLS Gen2, which pattern describes the raw data zone?

1. Bronze: Unmodified source data

2. Silver: Validated and enriched data

3. Gold: Business-aggregated data

4. Platinum: ML-optimized data

31. For GDPR compliance, which ADLS Gen2 feature automates PII data deletion?

1. Lifecycle management + blob index tags

2. Immutable storage policies

3. Soft delete retention

4. Customer-managed keys

32. Which Cosmos DB setting reduces storage costs by 70% for infrequently accessed metadata?

1. Analytical TTL

2. Autoscale throughput

3. Standard provisioning

4. Serverless capacity mode

33. What is the primary benefit of Z-order indexing in Delta Lake?

1. Improves compression ratios

2. Enables ACID transactions

3. Accelerates multi-column predicates

4. Reduces VACUUM costs

34. For a Synapse pipeline loading 100GB/hour into a dedicated SQL pool, which copy method minimizes resource contention?

1. PolyBase with external tables

2. COPY INTO statement

3. SSIS package execution

4. Bulk Insert T-SQL command

35. Which authentication method should be deprecated for Blob Storage access in 2025?

1. Shared Key authorization

2. Azure AD service principal

3. SAS tokens with stored policies

4. Managed identity

36. What is the effect of enabling accelerated networking on an Azure VM hosting a SQL Server instance?

1. Reduces latency between compute and Premium SSDs

2. Enables RDMA for Storage Spaces Direct

3. Bypasses hypervisor for network traffic

4. Increases throughput to Azure NetApp Files

37. When using Synapse Spark to process Delta Lake tables, what does `VACUUM RETAIN 0 HOURS` do?

1. Removes all historical versions

2. Compacts small files

3. Updates statistics

4. Optimizes Z-order

38. Which Blob Storage access tier is optimized for write-once-read-never workloads?

1. Hot

2. Cool

3. Cold

4. Archive

39. Which Cosmos DB API provides MongoDB 4.2 wire protocol compatibility?

1. Core (SQL) API

2. MongoDB API

3. Cassandra API

4. Gremlin API

5. Overall explanation

40. When using Synapse Link for Cosmos DB, what synchronizes data between transactional and analytical stores?

1. Change Feed processor

2. Automatic TTL replication

3. Azure Data Factory pipeline

4. Near-real-time ETL job

41. For time-series IoT data in ADLS Gen2, which file format minimizes storage costs?

1. CSV with GZIP

2. Avro with DEFLATE

3. Parquet with SNAPPY

4. ORC with ZLIB

42. Which compression type is not supported natively by Delta Lake?

1. ZSTD

2. LZ4

3. SNAPPY

4. GZIP

43. What happens when you enable read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) on Blob Storage?

1. Secondary region becomes readable

2. Automatic failover to secondary region

3. Triple replication in primary region

4. Object versioning enabled

44. For a slowly changing dimension table in Synapse, which distribution type minimizes data movement during updates?

1. Hash-distributed

2. Round-robin

3. Replicated

4. Range-distributed

45. Which Synapse security feature encrypts data at rest using customer-controlled keys?

1. Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)

2. Always Encrypted

3. Dynamic Data Masking

4. Row-Level Security

46. What does enabling hierarchical namespace on Blob Storage enable?

1. POSIX-compliant access control lists

2. Automatic file format conversion

3. Geo-zone-redundant storage

4. Object-level immutability

47. When implementing Change Data Capture (CDC) for Azure SQL DB to Synapse, which tool provides lowest latency?

1. Azure Data Factory mapping data flows

2. Kafka Connect with Debezium

3. SQL Server Integration Services

4. Azure Databricks Auto Loader

48. Which Cosmos DB consistency level provides linearizability at the cost of higher latency?

1. Strong

2. Bounded staleness

3. Session

4. Consistent prefix

49. Which Cosmos DB feature automatically scales throughput based on demand?

1. Autoscale provisioned throughput

2. Serverless capacity mode

3. Manual RU adjustment

4. Partition key splitting

50. For a star schema in Synapse dedicated SQL pool, which fact table distribution strategy optimizes query performance?

1. Hash-distributed on fact key

2. Round-robin

3. Replicated

4. Hash-distributed on join key

FAQs

1. What is the Microsoft Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203 certification?

The DP-203 certification validates your ability to design and implement data solutions that use Azure services such as Azure Synapse Analytics, Data Lake, and Databricks to manage and transform data efficiently.

2. How do I become an Azure Data Engineer Associate certified professional?

You must pass the DP-203: Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure exam, which assesses your skills in integrating, transforming, and securing data for analytics using Azure tools.

3. What are the prerequisites for the DP-203 certification exam?

There are no mandatory prerequisites. However, Microsoft recommends prior experience with data processing, SQL, and Python as well as familiarity with Azure data services.

4. How much does the Microsoft Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203 exam cost?

The exam costs around $165 USD, though pricing may differ based on your country or region.

5. How many questions are in the DP-203 exam, and what is the exam duration?

The exam includes approximately 40–60 multiple-choice questions with a total duration of 120 minutes.

6. What topics are covered in the Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203 certification exam?

It covers data storage, integration, transformation, monitoring, and security using Azure Data Factory, Synapse, and Databricks.

7. How difficult is the Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203 exam?

It’s considered intermediate to advanced, requiring solid knowledge of data engineering concepts and hands-on Azure experience.

8. How long does it take to prepare for the DP-203 certification exam?

Most learners prepare within 8–10 weeks, depending on their prior experience with Azure and data engineering tools.

9. What jobs can I get after earning the Azure Data Engineer Associate DP-203 certification?

You can work as an Azure Data Engineer, Data Analyst, Data Architect, or Business Intelligence Developer in cloud-focused organizations.

10. What is the average salary of an Azure Data Engineer Associate certified professional?

Certified professionals earn between $110,000–$145,000 annually, depending on role, experience, and location.