M2.12 module quiz
Ten questions. 80% to pass (8 of 10). Open book, unlimited retakes.
Answers are collapsed under each question. Answer first, then check.
Q1
Snowflake connects to ZopNight as:
A. A standalone connection on every cloud, with the cloud derived from the account host
B. A credential on the underlying cloud account that actually hosts the deployment
C. A Databricks-style workspace connection, standalone on AWS
D. A generic API integration with a base URL and token
Show answer
Correct: A. Azure Databricks is the exception that makes this confusing: that one rides the Azure subscription. Snowflake never does, on any cloud.
Q2
The four parented Snowflake resource types are:
A. warehouse, database, user, resource-monitor
B. table, materialized-view, stage, pipe
C. account, warehouse, database, user
D. Only tables
Show answer
Correct: B. All four parent to their database with the schema folded into the UID, which keeps the hierarchy two levels deep in an account with thousands of tables.
Q3
A Snowflake warehouse’s compute cost is:
A. Instance-hours multiplied by a fixed hourly rate
B. A flat monthly fee per warehouse created
C. Per query executed against the warehouse
D. Credits consumed times the per-edition credit rate
Show answer
Correct: D. Credits are consumed only while the warehouse is running, which is the mental-model shift from the rest of the curriculum: an idle auto-suspended warehouse costs nothing.
Q4
Each step up the warehouse size ladder:
A. Adds a fixed increment of credits
B. Roughly doubles the credits per hour
C. Halves the credits burned per hour
D. Has no effect on the credit burn
Show answer
Correct: B. So sizing up saves money only when doubling the size more than halves the runtime. A query going from 60s to 35s on a doubled warehouse costs about 1.17× as much.
Q5
Which Snowflake resource types are schedulable?
A. Warehouses only
B. Every discovered type
C. Warehouses, databases and pipes
D. Warehouses and resource monitors
Show answer
Correct: A. Nothing else has a power state. Cost control on the other eight types runs through retention, transient tables, clustering and search-optimization settings.
Q6
A Snowflake warehouse Stop is:
A. Terminal, exactly like a Databricks cluster stop
B. A scale-to-zero that keeps the warehouse allocated
C. A reversible SUSPEND; Resume restores the same warehouse
D. A deletion, requiring the warehouse to be recreated
Show answer
Correct: C. Which makes warehouse scheduling a comfortable first action: the worst realistic outcome of a badly-chosen window is a failed query, not a destroyed resource.
Q7
Adding a schedule to a warehouse that already has tight auto-suspend:
A. Is redundant once auto-suspend is set
B. Completely overrides the warehouse’s own auto-suspend threshold setting
C. Only helps if auto-suspend is disabled first
D. Answers a different question: it closes the window so a resume is refused
Show answer
Correct: D. Auto-suspend is reactive and any query resumes the warehouse. A schedule is what stops a stray report, a retrying DAG or a BI poller burning credits overnight.
Q8
Snowflake recommendations are:
A. V1 rules, exactly like the AWS rule catalog
B. Not available; Snowflake has no rules
C. V2-only, served through the capability catalog
D. Split between the V1 and V2 engines
Show answer
Correct: C. Snowflake arrived after V2 existed, so it was built there with no V1 implementation to fall back to. The findings are cost-optimisation only; there is no Snowflake security family.
Q9
Four of the twenty Snowflake signals are guardrails showing $0 savings. The right treatment is:
A. Dismiss them as unpriceable
B. Act on them anyway; they bound the worst case
C. Wait until they show a saving
D. Route them across to the security team instead
Show answer
Correct: B. Auto-suspend, statement timeout, resource monitor and tag. On a credit model a single runaway query on an oversized warehouse can burn a month’s budget in a weekend, and these are what bound that.
Q10
Reconciling ZopNight’s Snowflake figure against the customer’s own is easier than on AWS because:
A. Snowflake bills monthly rather than daily
B. Snowflake offers no commitment discounts
C. Both sides read the same account-usage views
D. ZopNight ingests the Snowflake invoice directly
Show answer
Correct: C. A disagreement narrows quickly to edition rate, window, or a compute-versus-storage scope difference, where an AWS reconciliation has to reason about amortization, credits and unattributed line items.
What’s next
Back to Snowflake.