Databricks Databricks-Certified-Associate-Developer-for-Apache-Spark-3.0 - Databricks Certified Associate Developer for Apache Spark 3.0 Exam

broadcast is not a valid join type.

Correct! The code block should read transactionsDf.join(broadcast(itemsDf), "itemId"). This would imply an inner join (this is the default in DataFrame.join()), but since the join type is not given in the

question, this would be a valid choice.

The larger DataFrame transactionsDf is being broadcasted, rather than the smaller DataFrame itemsDf.

This option does not apply here, since the syntax around broadcasting is incorrect.

Spark will only perform the broadcast operation if this behavior has been enabled on the Spark cluster.

No, it is enabled by default, since the spark.sql.autoBroadcastJoinThreshold property is set to 10 MB by default. If that property would be set to -1, then broadcast joining would be disabled.

More info: Performance Tuning - Spark 3.1.1 Documentation (https://bit.ly/3gCz34r)

The join method should be replaced by the broadcast method.

No, DataFrame has no broadcast() method.

The syntax is wrong, how= should be removed from the code block.

No, having the keyword argument how= is totally acceptable.

There is a place in the Spark UI that shows the property spark.executor.memory.

Correct, you can see Spark properties such as spark.executor.memory in the Environment tab.

Some of the tabs in the Spark UI are named Jobs, Stages, Storage, DAGs, Executors, and SQL.

Wrong – Jobs, Stages, Storage, Executors, and SQL are all tabs in the Spark UI. DAGs can be inspected in the "Jobs" tab in the job details or in the Stages or SQL tab, but are not a separate tab.

Via the Spark UI, workloads can be manually distributed across distributors.

No, the Spark UI is meant for inspecting the inner workings of Spark which ultimately helps understand, debug, and optimize Spark transactions.

Via the Spark UI, stage execution speed can be modified.

No, see above.

The Scheduler tab shows how jobs that are run in parallel by multiple users are distributed across the cluster.

No, there is no Scheduler tab.

Explanation

The Spark driver requests the transformation of operations into DAG computations from the worker nodes.

No, the Spark driver transforms operations into DAG computations itself.

If set in the Spark configuration, Spark scales the Spark driver horizontally to improve parallel processing performance.

No. There is always a single driver per application, but one or more executors.

The Spark driver processes partitions in an optimized, distributed fashion.

No, this is what executors do.

In a non-interactive Spark application, the Spark driver automatically creates the SparkSession object.

Wrong. In a non-interactive Spark application, you need to create the SparkSession object. In an interactive Spark shell, the Spark driver instantiates the object for you.

The hierarchy is, from top to bottom: Job, Stage, Task.

Executors and slots facilitate the execution of tasks, but they are not directly part of the hierarchy. Executors are launched by the driver on worker nodes for the purpose of running a specific Spark

application. Slots help Spark parallelize work. An executor can have multiple slots which enable it to process multiple tasks in parallel.

Explanation

The cluster manager receives input from the driver through the SparkContext.

Correct. In order for the driver to contact the cluster manager, the driver launches a SparkContext. The driver then asks the cluster manager for resources to launch executors.

In client mode, the cluster manager runs on the edge node.

No. In client mode, the cluster manager is independent of the edge node and runs in the cluster.

The cluster manager does not exist in standalone mode.

Wrong, the cluster manager exists even in standalone mode. Remember, standalone mode is an easy means to deploy Spark across a whole cluster, with some limitations. For example, in

standalone mode, no other frameworks can run in parallel with Spark. The cluster manager is part of Spark in standalone deployments however and helps launch and maintain resources across the

cluster.

The cluster manager transforms jobs into DAGs.

No, transforming jobs into DAGs is the task of the Spark driver.

Each cluster manager works on a single partition of data.

No. Cluster managers do not work on partitions directly. Their job is to coordinate cluster resources so that they can be requested by and allocated to Spark drivers.

More info: Introduction to Core Spark Concepts • BigData

Correct code block:

transactionsDf.join(itemsDf, itemsDf.itemId == transactionsDf.productId, "outer")

Static notebook | Dynamic notebook: See test 1, QUESTION NO: 33 (Databricks import instructions) (https://flrs.github.io/spark_practice_tests_code/#1/33.html ,

https://bit.ly/sparkpracticeexams_import_instructions)

Explanation

Pay attention here to which variables are quoted. fileSchema is a variable and thus should not be in quotes. parquet is not a variable and therefore should be in quotes.

SparkSession.read (here referenced as spark.read) returns a DataFrameReader which all subsequent calls reference - the DataFrameReader is not callable, so you should not use parentheses

here.

Finally, there is no open method in PySpark. The method name is load.

Static notebook | Dynamic notebook: See test 1, QUESTION NO: 44 (Databricks import instructions)

Explanation

Reroute a query in case of an executor failure.

Correct. Although this feature exists in Spark, it is not a feature of Adaptive Query Execution. The cluster manager keeps track of executors and will work together with the driver to launch an

executor and assign the workload of the failed executor to it (see also link below).

Replace a sort merge join with a broadcast join, where appropriate.

No, this is a feature of Adaptive Query Execution.

Coalesce partitions to accelerate data processing.

Wrong, Adaptive Query Execution does this.

Collect runtime statistics during query execution.

Incorrect, Adaptive Query Execution (AQE) collects these statistics to adjust query plans. This feedback loop is an essential part of accelerating queries via AQE.

Split skewed partitions into smaller partitions to avoid differences in partition processing time.

No, this is indeed a feature of Adaptive Query Execution. Find more information in the Databricks blog post linked below.

More info: Learning Spark, 2nd Edition, Chapter 12, On which way does RDD of spark finish fault-tolerance? - Stack Overflow, How to Speed up SQL Queries with Adaptive Query Execution

transactionsDf.coalesce(24)

No, the coalesce() method can only reduce, but not increase the number of partitions.

transactionsDf.repartition()

No, repartition() requires a numPartitions argument.

transactionsDf.repartition("itemId", 24)

No, here the cols and numPartitions argument have been mixed up. If the code block would be transactionsDf.repartition(24, "itemId"), this would be a valid solution.

transactionsDf.repartition(24, boost=True)

No, there is no boost argument in the repartition() method.

Explanation

Correct code block: transactionsDf.drop("productId", "f")

This QUESTION NO: requires a lot of thinking to get right. For solving it, you may take advantage of the digital notepad that is provided to you during the test. You have probably seen that the code

block

includes multiple errors. In the test, you are usually confronted with a code block that only contains a single error. However, since you are practicing here, this challenging multi-error QUESTION

NO: will

make it easier for you to deal with single-error questions in the real exam.

The select operator should be replaced by a drop operator, the column names should be listed directly as arguments to the operator and not as a list, and all column names should be expressed as

strings without being wrapped in a col() operator.

Correct! Here, you need to figure out the many, many things that are wrong with the initial code block. While the QUESTION NO: can be solved by using a select statement, a drop statement, given

the

answer options, is the correct one. Then, you can read in the documentation that drop does not take a list as an argument, but just the column names that should be dropped. Finally, the column

names should be expressed as strings and not as Python variable names as in the original code block.

The column names should be listed directly as arguments to the operator and not as a list.

Incorrect. While this is a good first step and part of the correct solution (see above), this modification is insufficient to solve the question.

The column names should be listed directly as arguments to the operator and not as a list and following the pattern of how column names are expressed in the code block, columns productId and f

should be replaced by transactionId, predError, value and storeId.

Wrong. If you use the same pattern as in the original code block (col(productId), col(f)), you are still making a mistake. col(productId) will trigger Python to search for the content of a variable named

productId instead of telling Spark to use the column productId - for that, you need to express it as a string.

The select operator should be replaced by a drop operator, the column names should be listed directly as arguments to the operator and not as a list, and all col() operators should be removed.

No. This still leaves you with Python trying to interpret the column names as Python variables (see above).

The select operator should be replaced by a drop operator.

Wrong, this is not enough to solve the question. If you do this, you will still face problems since you are passing a Python list to drop and the column names are still interpreted as Python variables

(see above).

More info: pyspark.sql.DataFrame.drop — PySpark 3.1.2 documentation

Static notebook | Dynamic notebook: See test 3, QUESTION NO: 30 (Databricks import instructions)