This is the free Microsoft DP-900 practice question bank —
150 of 284 total questions, each with a full explanation, free to
read with no signup required. Updated 2026-08-06.
Every answer is verified against official Microsoft documentation —
see our methodology.
Question 1
Which T-SQL statement should be used to instruct a database management system to use an index instead of performing a full table scan?
A. WHERE
B. SELECT
C. UNION
Show Answer
Correct Answer: A
Explanation: Among the given options, WHERE is the only clause that can enable the optimizer to use an index by filtering on indexed columns. SELECT does not instruct index usage, and UNION combines result sets. Strictly speaking, T-SQL uses index hints (e.g. WITH (INDEX(...))) to explicitly force an index, but that option is not listed, so A is the best answer.
Question 2
HOTSPOT
-
For each of the following statements, select Yes if the statement is true. Otherwise, select No.
NOTE: Each correct selection is worth one point.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: 1. No
2. No
3. Yes
Explanation: Azure SQL Database (PaaS) does not provide all SQL Server VM features. PaaS does not require creating VMs or VNets before deploying the database. In IaaS, you provision a VM (and typically its virtual network) before hosting a relational database.
Question 3
Which service can be used to build extract, transform, and load (ETL) pipelines?
A. Azure Data Factory
B. Azure Pipelines
C. Azure SQL Database
D. Azure Cosmos DB
E. Azure Databricks
Show Answer
Correct Answer: A
Explanation: Azure Data Factory is the managed Azure service designed to build, orchestrate, and monitor extract, transform, and load (ETL/ELT) data pipelines. Azure Pipelines is for CI/CD, Azure SQL Database is a database service, Azure Cosmos DB is a NoSQL database, and Azure Databricks is an analytics platform that can perform transformations but is not the primary managed ETL orchestration service.
Question 4
What can you use to create data ingestion pipelines?
A. Azure HDInsight
B. Azure SQL Database
C. Azure Data Factory
D. Azure Cosmos DB
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: Azure Data Factory is Microsoft's managed cloud ETL/ELT and data integration service designed to create, schedule, and orchestrate data ingestion pipelines from a wide variety of data sources into analytics and storage services. Azure HDInsight provides managed Hadoop/Spark clusters, Azure SQL Database is a relational database service, and Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed NoSQL database rather than a pipeline orchestration service.
Question 5
HOTSPOT
-
For each of the following statements, select Yes if the statement is true. Otherwise, select No.
NOTE: Each correct selection is worth one point.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: No
No
Yes
Explanation: Stream processing handles events continuously rather than processing an entire dataset at once. Batch processing has higher latency and is not immediate. Stream processing is commonly used for low-latency responses, aggregations, and rolling calculations.
Question 6
You have the following T-SQL statement.
SELECT o.OrderNo, o.OrderDate, c.Address, c.City
FROM Order AS o -
JOIN Customer AS c -
ON o.Customer = c.ID;
What is the function of the ON clause?
A. to update data in the Customer table
B. to match data in the Customer table to data in the Order table
C. to define an alias for the Customer table
D. to update data in the Order table
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: The ON clause in a JOIN specifies the join condition, defining how rows from the Order table are matched with rows from the Customer table. Here, it matches orders to customers where o.Customer = c.ID.
Question 7
What is the responsibility of a database administrator?
A. applying data cleaning routines
B. creating data visualizations
C. managing data integration processes
D. storing backup copies of data
Show Answer
Correct Answer: D
Explanation: A database administrator is responsible for maintaining and administering databases, including backup and recovery. Applying data cleaning, creating visualizations, and managing data integration are typically handled by data analysts, BI specialists, or data engineers.
Question 8
How is raw data stored in a data lakehouse?
A. as tables
B. as queues
C. as files
D. as disks
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: In a data lakehouse, raw data is typically stored in object storage as files (such as Parquet, ORC, JSON, CSV, or Avro). The lakehouse layers table metadata and transactional features over these files, but the underlying raw data is stored as files.
Question 9
HOTSPOT -
Select the answer that correctly completes the sentence.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: simple analytics with short latency
Explanation: Stream processing is optimized for real-time or near-real-time processing, favoring low-latency handling of continuous data streams with relatively simple operations such as filtering and aggregation.
Question 10
You need to accept and store large quantities of IoT streaming data.
Which database solution should you use?
A. Azure Database for PostgreSQL
B. Azure Database for MariaDB
C. Azure Cache for Redis
D. Azure Cosmos DB
Show Answer
Correct Answer: D
Explanation: Azure Cosmos DB is designed for globally distributed, horizontally scalable, low-latency workloads and is well suited to ingesting and storing large volumes of IoT streaming data. Azure Database for PostgreSQL and MariaDB are relational databases not optimized for this scenario, and Azure Cache for Redis is an in-memory cache rather than a primary durable data store.
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