Free Practice Questions for the Snowflake SnowPro Advanced DSA-C02 Exam (2026 Updated)

Explanation

A stream stores an offset for the source object and not any actual table columns or data. When que-ried, a stream accesses and returns the historic data in the same shape as the source object (i.e. the same column names and ordering) with the following additional columns:

METADATA$ACTION

Indicates the DML operation (INSERT, DELETE) recorded.

METADATA$ISUPDATE

Indicates whether the operation was part of an UPDATE statement. Updates to rows in the source object are represented as a pair of DELETE and INSERT records in the stream with a metadata column METADATA$ISUPDATE values set to TRUE.

Note that streams record the differences between two offsets. If a row is added and then updated in the current offset, the delta change is a new row. The METADATA$ISUPDATE row records a FALSE value.

METADATA$ROW_ID

Specifies the unique and immutable ID for the row, which can be used to track changes to specific rows over time.

Explanation

Hyperparameters in Machine learning are those parameters that are explicitly defined by the user to control the learning process. These hyperparameters are used to improve the learning of the model, and their values are set before starting the learning process of the model.

What are hyperparameters?

In Machine Learning/Deep Learning, a model is represented by its parameters. In contrast, a training process involves selecting the best/optimal hyperparameters that are used by learning algorithms to provide the best result. So, what are these hyperparameters? The answer is, "Hyperparameters are defined as the parameters that are explicitly defined by the user to control the learning process."

Here the prefix "hyper" suggests that the parameters are top-level parameters that are used in con-trolling the learning process. The value of the Hyperparameter is selected and set by the machine learning engineer before the learning algorithm begins training the model. Hence, these are external to the model, and their values cannot be changed during the training process.

Some examples of Hyperparameters in Machine Learning

· The k in kNN or K-Nearest Neighbour algorithm

· Learning rate for training a neural network

· Train-test split ratio

· Batch Size

· Number of Epochs

· Branches in Decision Tree

· Number of clusters in Clustering Algorithm

Model Parameters:

Model parameters are configuration variables that are internal to the model, and a model learns them on its own. For example, W Weights or Coefficients of independent variables in the Linear regression model. or Weights or Coefficients of independent variables in SVM, weight, and biases of a neural network, cluster centroid in clustering. Some key points for model parameters are as follows:

They are used by the model for making predictions.

· They are learned by the model from the data itself

· These are usually not set manually.

· These are the part of the model and key to a machine learning Algorithm.

Model Hyperparameters:

Hyperparameters are those parameters that are explicitly defined by the user to control the learning process. Some key points for model parameters are as follows:

These are usually defined manually by the machine learning engineer.

One cannot know the exact best value for hyperparameters for the given problem. The best value can be determined either by the rule of thumb or by trial and error.

Some examples of Hyperparameters are the learning rate for training a neural network, K in the KNN algorithm.

Explanation

All Snowpark ML modeling and preprocessing classes are in the snowflake.ml.modeling namespace. The Snowpark ML modules have the same name as the corresponding module from the sklearn namespace. For example, the Snowpark ML module corresponding to sklearn.calibration is snow-flake.ml.modeling.calibration.

The xgboost and lightgbm modules correspond to snowflake.ml.modeling.xgboost and snow-flake.ml.modeling.lightgbm, respectively.

Not all of the classes from scikit-learn are supported in Snowpark ML.

Explanation

Supervised learning methodology applies conditional probability of all the variables with respective the dependent variable and generally conditional probability of variables is nothing but a basic method of estimating the statistics for few random experiments.

Conditional probability is thus the likelihood of an event or outcome occurring based on the occurrence of some other event or prior outcome. Two events are said to be independent if one event occurring does not affect the probability that the other event will occur.

Explanation

Model versioning in a way involves tracking the changes made to an ML model that has been previously built. Put differently, it is the process of making changes to the configurations of an ML Model. From another perspective, we can see model versioning as a feature that helps Machine Learning Engineers, Data Scientists, and related personnel create and keep multiple versions of the same model.

Think of it as a way of taking notes of the changes you make to the model through tweaking hyperparameters, retraining the model with more data, and so on.

In model versioning, a number of things need to be versioned, to help us keep track of important changes. I’ll list and explain them below:

Implementation code: From the early days of model building to optimization stages, code or in this case source code of the model plays an important role. This code experiences significant changes during optimization stages which can easily be lost if not tracked properly. Because of this, code is one of the things that are taken into consideration during the model versioning process.

Data: In some cases, training data does improve significantly from its initial state during model op-timization phases. This can be as a result of engineering new features from existing ones to train our model on. Also there is metadata (data about your training data and model) to consider versioning. Metadata can change different times over without the training data actually changing. We need to be able to track these changes through versioning

Model: The model is a product of the two previous entities and as stated in their explanations, an ML model changes at different points of the optimization phases through hyperparameter setting, model artifacts and learning coefficients. Versioning helps take record of the different versions of a Machine Learning model.

MLFlow & Pachyderm are the tools used to manage ML lifecycle & Model versioning.

Explanation

Window Functions

A window function operates on a group (“window”) of related rows.

Each time a window function is called, it is passed a row (the current row in the window) and the window of rows that contain the current row. The window function returns one output row for each input row. The output depends on the individual row passed to the function and the values of the other rows in the window passed to the function.

Some window functions are order-sensitive. There are two main types of order-sensitive window functions:

Rank-related functions.

Window frame functions.

Rank-related functions list information based on the “rank” of a row. For example, if you rank stores in descending order by profit per year, the store with the most profit will be ranked 1; the second-most profitable store will be ranked 2, etc.

Window frame functions allow you to perform rolling operations, such as calculating a running total or a moving average, on a subset of the rows in the window.

Explanation

What is linear regression?

Linear regression analysis is used to predict the value of a variable based on the value of another variable. The variable you want to predict is called the dependent variable. The variable you are using to predict the other variable's value is called the independent variable.

Linear regression attempts to model the relationship between two variables by fitting a linear equation to observed data. One variable is considered to be an explanatory variable, and the other is considered to be a dependent variable. For example, a modeler might want to relate the weights of individuals to their heights using a linear regression model.

A linear regression line has an equation of the form Y = a + bX, where X is the explanatory variable and Y is the dependent variable. The slope of the line is b, and a is the intercept (the value of y when x = 0).

For linear regression Y=a+bx+error.

If neglect error then Y=a+bx. If x increases by 1, then Y = a+b(x+1) which implies Y=a+bx+b. So Y increases by its slope.

For linear regression Y=a+bx+error. If neglect error then Y=a+bx. If x increases by 1, then Y = a+b(x+1) which implies Y=a+bx+b. So Y increases by its slope.

Explanation

Vectorized Python UDFs let you define Python functions that receive batches of input rows as Pandas DataFrames and return batches of results as Pandas arrays or Series. You call vectorized Py-thon UDFs the same way you call other Python UDFs.

Advantages of using vectorized Python UDFs compared to the default row-by-row processing pat-tern include:

The potential for better performance if your Python code operates efficiently on batches of rows.

Less transformation logic required if you are calling into libraries that operate on Pandas Data-Frames or Pandas arrays.

When you use vectorized Python UDFs:

You do not need to change how you write queries using Python UDFs. All batching is handled by the UDF framework rather than your own code.

As with non-vectorized UDFs, there is no guarantee of which instances of your handler code will see which batches of input.

Explanation

A stream object records data manipulation language (DML) changes made to tables, including inserts, updates, and deletes, as well as metadata about each change, so that actions can be taken using the changed data. This process is referred to as change data capture (CDC). An individual table stream tracks the changes made to rows in a source table. A table stream (also referred to as simply a “stream”) makes a “change table” available of what changed, at the row level, between two transactional points of time in a table. This allows querying and consuming a sequence of change records in a transactional fashion.

Streams can be created to query change data on the following objects:

· Standard tables, including shared tables.

· Views, including secure views

· Directory tables

· Event tables

Explanation

NULL values are ignored unless all the records are NULL, in which case a NULL value is returned

Explanation

A scalar function (UDF) returns one output row for each input row. The returned row consists of a single column/value

Explanation

What is an External Function?

An external function calls code that is executed outside Snowflake.

The remotely executed code is known as a remote service.

Information sent to a remote service is usually relayed through a proxy service.

Snowflake stores security-related external function information in an API integration.

External Function:

An external function is a type of UDF. Unlike other UDFs, an external function does not contain its own code; instead, the external function calls code that is stored and executed outside Snowflake.

Inside Snowflake, the external function is stored as a database object that contains information that Snowflake uses to call the remote service. This stored information includes the URL of the proxy service that relays information to and from the remote service.

Remote Service:

The remotely executed code is known as a remote service.

The remote service must act like a function. For example, it must return a value.

Snowflake supports scalar external functions; the remote service must return exactly one row for each row received.

Proxy Service:

Snowflake does not call a remote service directly. Instead, Snowflake calls a proxy service, which relays the data to the remote service.

The proxy service can increase security by authenticating requests to the remote service.

The proxy service can support subscription-based billing for a remote service. For example, the proxy service can verify that a caller to the remote service is a paid subscriber.

The proxy service also relays the response from the remote service back to Snowflake.

Examples of proxy services include:

Amazon API Gateway.

Microsoft Azure API Management service.

API Integration:

An integration is a Snowflake object that provides an interface between Snowflake and third-party services. An API integration stores information, such as security information, that is needed to work with a proxy service or remote service.

An API integration is created with the CREATE API INTEGRATION command.

Users can write and call their own remote services, or call remote services written by third parties. These remote services can be written using any HTTP server stack, including cloud serverless compute services such as AWS Lambda.

Explanation

Since the normal curve is symmetric about its mean, its skewness is zero. This is a theoretical expla-nation for mathematical proofs, you can refer to books or websites that speak on the same in detail.

Explanation

Data visualization is the visual depiction of data through the use of graphs, plots, and informational graphics. Its practitioners use statistics and data science to convey the meaning behind data in ethical and accurate ways.