M0.4 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
On Azure, a per-resource report built on ActualCost shows $0 for every reservation-covered VM. The fix is:
A. Exclude all of the reserved resources from the report entirely, first
B. Switch the report to AWS-style unblended cost
C. Wait for the monthly invoice to settle first
D. Use AmortizedCost, which distributes the reservation purchase across the term
Show answer
Correct: D. ZopNight pulls AmortizedCost for all Azure billing sync for exactly this reason: ActualCost reflects cash flow accurately and breaks the per-resource reporting use case.
Q2
AWS lineItem/UnblendedCost is:
A. As-charged, so an upfront RI posts as a lump sum and covered hours show $0
B. Already amortized across the term
C. Identical to Azure’s own AmortizedCost column in more or less every way
D. Net of credits already applied
Show answer
Correct: A. AWS has the same trap as Azure under a different name, which is why it ships a separate amortized view: Cost Explorer’s Amortized toggle, or the CUR’s EffectiveCost column.
Q3
Rack rate is:
A. The price after all discounts are applied
B. The invoice total simply divided by the total count of resources
C. The provider’s own internal cost to serve
D. The list price, calculated from published pricing APIs, always available
Show answer
Correct: D. It is always available because it is computed rather than fetched, which is what makes it the fallback when billing sync has not landed for a resource-day.
Q4
In the two-source cost model, resolution between rack rate and billing cost happens:
A. Per organisation, all-or-nothing
B. Per cloud account connected
C. Per resource-day, by row presence
D. Per calendar month billed
Show answer
Correct: C. A resource-day with a billing-backed row uses it; one without falls back to rack rate. An earlier org-wide gate was removed because one unsynced account was suppressing real billing data for every resource in the org.
Q5
The cost_source label on a cost record takes which values?
A. rack and billed
B. list, net and amortized
C. estimated and final
D. calculated and actual
Show answer
Correct: D. calculated means only rack rate is populated; actual means the billing API overlaid it. Rollup-level source is derived: actual if any contributing row is actual, else calculated.
Q6
For a multi-month trend report, non-USD charges should be converted using:
A. The rate as of the date of the usage, stored with the record
B. Today’s exchange rate, applied fresh at every render time
C. The rate as of the invoice issue date
D. The monthly average rate for the period
Show answer
Correct: A. Re-converting at render time makes the report non-deterministic: the same query returns different numbers on different days. Rate-as-of storage is the fix: each charge keeps the rate from the day the usage happened. An invoice-date or monthly-average rate is stable too, but it converts each day’s usage at a rate that did not apply that day, which blurs the trend. Reconciling a single invoice is different: there you match the rate the provider used to issue it.
Q7
In GCP’s BigQuery billing export, the discount on a CUD-covered VM shows up:
A. Already amortized into the cost column for the covered VM
B. Nowhere at all, because GCP offers no commitment discounts of any kind
C. As negative amounts in the credits column, apart from the pre-credit cost
D. Only on the monthly invoice PDF, never in the export
Show answer
Correct: C. GCP’s export has no amortized field. The cost column is the charge before credits, and committed-use and sustained-use discounts arrive as negative credits amounts. ZopNight adds the credits to the cost, which is why its GCP figures are labelled “Net of Credits”.
Q8
Rack rate is the right number to quote when:
A. Reporting actual spend to the finance team each month
B. Estimating savings before any billing data exists
C. Reconciling the total against the invoice
D. Calculating a chargeback figure per team
Show answer
Correct: B. With no billing data, the list price is the only rate you can price removed hours at. Once billing is connected, ZopNight prices schedule savings at your real effective rate instead (billed cost divided by running hours). The other three are about what you actually paid, so they need billed cost.
Q9
The gap between rack rate and billing cost is:
A. The discount stack: commitments, sustained use, negotiated agreements, credits
B. A provider billing error
C. Currency conversion loss
D. Unattributed residual spend sitting somewhere on the account already
Show answer
Correct: A. Understanding the gap as a stack is what stops people treating a large gap as a data problem. It is the thing the org already negotiated.
Q10
Three FX mistakes distort reports. Which is one of them?
A. Storing amounts in the original billing currency
B. Re-converting historical records at today’s rate
C. Rounding every amount to two decimal places
D. Recording which rate source was used
Show answer
Correct: B. It makes history mutable: last quarter’s report changes because the exchange rate moved, which is indefensible to anyone reconciling against a filed number.