Delta Lake Operations - 02: Practice Questions

Learning Objectives

Validate your understanding of INSERT INTO, INSERT OVERWRITE, COPY INTO, and MERGE INTO commands

Test your ability to distinguish between schema evolution and schema enforcement scenarios

Assess your grasp of CTAS operations and automatic schema inference

Demonstrate knowledge of shallow clone vs deep clone use cases and differences

Verify your knowledge of Time Travel preservation across different operations

Overview

This practice set covers Advanced Delta Lake Operations, a critical component of the Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate exam. Each question tests your understanding of Delta Lake commands, schema management, and data ingestion patterns.

Test your knowledge of Delta Lake operations and data management:

Data ingestion commands including INSERT INTO, INSERT OVERWRITE, COPY INTO, and MERGE INTO
Schema management covering schema evolution, schema enforcement, and mergeSchema options
Table cloning operations using shallow clone and deep clone for different use cases
Table creation patterns including CTAS, DDL commands, and table properties
Advanced features such as generated columns and case-insensitive schema matching
Medallion Architecture layers and their data processing characteristics
External vs managed table behavior during DROP operations

What makes this different:

Comprehensive coverage of Delta Lake DML and DDL operations
Practical scenarios showing when to use each ingestion command
Detailed explanations of schema evolution and enforcement concepts

Use this practice set to solidify your Delta Lake operations knowledge before exam day.

Prerequisites

Understanding of Delta Lake DML commands for data ingestion and updates
Knowledge of table cloning operations in Delta Lake
Familiarity with medallion architecture layers and data processing patterns
Knowledge of Delta Lake features like Time Travel and transaction logs