A research team is publishing a machine learning paper and needs to ensure that the dataset used is reproducible. They have a raw data file that is updated monthly. What should they do to maintain provenance?

Rename the file with the current date

Overwrite the same file each month

Store only the latest version in a cloud bucket

Create a new version of the dataset each month and record the changes

An analyst needs to extract data from a REST API that paginates results using a cursor. The API returns a maximum of 100 records per page. The analyst must ensure that all records are captured exactly once. Which approach is correct?

Loop through pages using the cursor until an empty page is returned, storing each page's records with the cursor value as metadata.

Request a large page size, such as 10,000 records, to reduce the number of API calls.

Fetch the first page only and assume it contains all the data.

Use the API's search endpoint with a broad query to retrieve all records in one response.

What is the primary purpose of a data ingestion pipeline?

To move data from source systems to storage or processing systems

To visualize data in dashboards

To train machine learning models

A marketing team wants to analyze social media posts related to their brand. They plan to use the platform's public API to collect posts. The API provides a streaming endpoint for real-time posts and a search endpoint for historical posts. Which approach should they use to build a dataset for both real-time and historical analysis?

Use the search endpoint for historical data and the streaming endpoint for ongoing data

Use a web scraper to collect posts instead of the API

Use only the streaming endpoint and wait for historical data to accumulate

Use only the search endpoint and poll it frequently

A company is building a data lake to store raw sensor data from IoT devices. The data is sent via MQTT to a broker. The team needs to ensure that the data is not lost and can be replayed. Which ingestion pipeline design should they use?

Use a message broker with retention and a consumer that writes to the data lake

Have devices write directly to the data lake

Use a serverless function to process and discard the data

Store data in a temporary database and delete it after a week

GIAC Machine Learning Engineer

Domain 1Objective 1

Data Acquisition GMLE Practice Questions (Page 6)

Part of the Foundational Data Science and Statistics domain, which makes up ~41% of our current practice bank. GIAC (SANS) does not publish an official question count, but from its 180-minute exam (~70–120 total, ~29–49 in this domain), expect 7–12 from this objective — we provide 39 practice questions to prepare you well beyond it. (estimate)

39questions here

8free pages

5concepts

Questions 26–30

26application · medium
A research team is publishing a machine learning paper and needs to ensure that the dataset used is reproducible. They have a raw data file that is updated monthly. What should they do to maintain provenance?
Select an answer first
27application · medium
An analyst needs to extract data from a REST API that paginates results using a cursor. The API returns a maximum of 100 records per page. The analyst must ensure that all records are captured exactly once. Which approach is correct?
Select an answer first
28foundation · easy
What is the primary purpose of a data ingestion pipeline?
Select an answer first
29application · medium
A marketing team wants to analyze social media posts related to their brand. They plan to use the platform's public API to collect posts. The API provides a streaming endpoint for real-time posts and a search endpoint for historical posts. Which approach should they use to build a dataset for both real-time and historical analysis?
Select an answer first
30expert · hard
A company is building a data lake to store raw sensor data from IoT devices. The data is sent via MQTT to a broker. The team needs to ensure that the data is not lost and can be replayed. Which ingestion pipeline design should they use?
Select an answer first

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