Apache Airflow Certification Practice Test 11

Root Cause Analysis Questions

Question 1 of 20

📋 Multiple Choice

Question 201

A daily retail sales DAG usually finishes in 20 minutes. Today it is still running after 2 hours. Investigation shows: - Scheduler healthy - Workers healthy - One source database query running for 90 minutes What is the MOST likely root cause?

✓

A. Slow source query

B. DAG naming issue

C. Pool configuration

D. XCom limitation

Answer

✅ A. Slow source query

Answered: 0 / 20

Apache Airflow Certification Practice Test 11

Root Cause Analysis Questions

Insightful Saga — Modern Data Engineering Certification Preparation

Question 201

A. Slow source query

B. DAG naming issue

C. Pool configuration

D. XCom limitation

Answer: ✅ A. Slow source query

Question 202

A banking workflow never starts. The DAG exists and appears in the Airflow UI. No DAG runs are being created. What is the MOST likely root cause?

A. DAG is paused

B. XCom issue

C. Pool exhaustion

D. Connection corruption

Answer: ✅ A. DAG is paused

Question 203

A healthcare DAG remains in "Queued" status for one hour. No tasks are running. Workers are fully utilized. What is the MOST likely root cause?

A. Worker capacity exhaustion

B. Variable issue

C. Trigger rule issue

D. DAG tagging issue

Answer: ✅ A

Question 204

A workflow processes customer data. The DAG succeeds, but the target table contains zero records. What is the MOST likely root cause category?

A. Business logic issue

B. Scheduler failure

C. Worker crash

D. UI problem

Answer: ✅ A

Question 205

A source API was unavailable for ten minutes. The workflow failed immediately without attempting another call. What is the MOST likely cause?

A. Missing retry configuration

B. Worker shortage

C. Scheduler failure

D. Connection pool issue

Answer: ✅ A

Question 206

A company reports duplicate reporting records. Investigation shows the same DAG execution date was triggered twice. What is the MOST likely root cause?

A. Duplicate DAG execution

B. Pool overflow

C. Variable corruption

D. Alerting issue

Answer: ✅ A

Question 207

A Sensor has been running for six hours. The downstream workflow has not started. The required file is not present. What is the MOST likely root cause?

A. Waiting condition not satisfied

B. Scheduler failure

C. Worker crash

D. Trigger rule misconfiguration

Answer: ✅ A

Question 208

A finance workflow suddenly begins failing after a source-system release. Task logs show missing columns. What is the MOST likely root cause?

A. Source schema change

B. Pool issue

C. DAG pause

D. Queue configuration

Answer: ✅ A

Question 209

A support engineer observes thousands of queued tasks. Scheduler is functioning correctly. What is the MOST likely area to investigate?

A. Worker availability

B. XCom size

C. Variable values

D. Task tags

Answer: ✅ A

Question 210

A company misses all workflow executions for one specific day. Investigation shows the Scheduler was unavailable during that period. What is the MOST likely root cause?

A. Scheduler outage

B. Pool exhaustion

C. Connection issue

D. Hook failure

Answer: ✅ A

Question 211

A healthcare workflow fails intermittently. The same code sometimes succeeds. Logs show temporary DNS resolution errors. What is the MOST likely root cause?

A. Infrastructure instability

B. DAG structure issue

C. XCom configuration

D. Variable mismatch

Answer: ✅ A

Question 212

A support engineer receives an SLA breach alert. All tasks succeeded successfully. What is the MOST likely explanation?

A. Workflow exceeded expected runtime

B. Scheduler crashed

C. Worker failed

D. Connection issue

Answer: ✅ A

Question 213

A DAG runs correctly in Dev but fails in Production. The code is identical. What is the MOST likely area to investigate first?

A. Environment configuration differences

B. DAG filename

C. Task Group structure

D. Alert settings

Answer: ✅ A

Question 214

A company receives hundreds of file-processing failures simultaneously. Investigation reveals cloud storage permissions changed overnight. What is the MOST likely root cause category?

A. Access control issue

B. Pool exhaustion

C. DAG corruption

D. Scheduler issue

Answer: ✅ A

Question 215

A banking DAG executes successfully. However, no customer notifications are delivered. What is the MOST likely component to investigate?

A. Notification task

B. Scheduler

C. Pool

D. Connection metadata

Answer: ✅ A

Question 216

A workflow suddenly begins creating historical runs covering two months of missing schedules. What is the MOST likely cause?

A. Catchup behavior

B. Pool limitation

C. Worker restart

D. DAG tags

Answer: ✅ A

Question 217

A manufacturing workflow frequently waits on external systems. Runtime is highly inconsistent. What is the MOST likely root cause category?

A. External dependency variability

B. Variable configuration

C. Trigger rule issue

D. Task Group structure

Answer: ✅ A

Question 218

Business users report failures before engineers are aware of them. What is the MOST likely operational gap?

A. Insufficient monitoring and alerting

B. XCom issue

C. Pool shortage

D. Variable management

Answer: ✅ A

Question 219

An Airflow environment consumes significantly more infrastructure resources than expected. Most workers remain idle throughout the day. What is the MOST likely cause?

A. Overprovisioned infrastructure

B. Missing Variables

C. DAG naming issue

D. Trigger rule misuse

Answer: ✅ A

Question 220

An enterprise Airflow platform experiences recurring incidents caused by different teams implementing workflows in different ways. What is the MOST likely root cause?

A. Lack of engineering standards and governance

B. Worker shortage

C. Sensor configuration

D. Queue management

Answer: ✅ A

Explanation:

Enterprise-scale Airflow environments require standardization, governance, reusable patterns, and operational controls to reduce inconsistency and operational risk.