Databricks Data Analyst Associate: 5 Practice Exams
250 questions with full explanations on Databricks SQL, AI/BI dashboards, Genie spaces, Unity Catalog and Delta Lake
You have read the documentation and clicked through a workspace. The question that remains is the one no amount of reading answers: are you actually ready to sit the exam?
These five practice tests are built to answer it. 250 questions, 50 per test, written against the Databricks exam guide effective 30 October 2025 and distributed across its nine sections in the official proportions, from Executing Queries Using Databricks SQL at 20% down to Importing Data and Data Modeling at 5% each.
That date matters more than usual here. The previous version of this exam retired on 29 September 2025. It had five sections; the current one has nine. Analytics Applications was dropped with no successor, and four sections were added: Importing Data, Developing AI/BI Genie Spaces, Data Modeling with Databricks SQL and Securing Data. Databricks Assistant, Lakehouse Federation, materialized and streaming tables, Liquid Clustering, Photon, Query Insights, Auto Loader, Delta Sharing and Marketplace all became fair game. A great deal of the practice material circulating online still teaches the retired five-section blueprint. It will prepare you carefully for the wrong exam.
The five tests climb deliberately. Groundwork asks one concept per question. In Practice frames each as a short workplace scenario. Trade-offs gives you two defensible options and one constraint that decides between them. Under the Hood asks for exact defaults, limits and syntax. Exam Day is the readiness gate: long stems, mixed sections, several constraints per question, and the real exam's 90 minutes.
Every answer option carries its own explanation, saying what that option actually is rather than simply that it is wrong. Every question closes with an overall explanation and a link to the Databricks documentation page it came from, so a disputed answer can be checked at source in seconds.
Each question is tagged to its exam section, so your score report after every attempt shows exactly which of the nine domains is costing you marks. Tests 1 to 4 pass at 80% and test 5 at 85%, both above where the real exam is likely to sit. Databricks does not publish its passing score, and a deliberate margin is the only sensible answer to that.
What this is not: a training course, a video series, or a collection of real exam questions. It tests and explains. Use it alongside the free official Databricks Academy material and a Databricks Free Edition workspace.
Groundwork: Platform, SQL and Dashboard Essentials
50 questions · 115 minutes · pass mark 80%
Start here. This test covers one concept per question with short, direct stems, so you can find out what you already know before scenarios get in the way. It spans all nine exam sections in their official proportions: the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform and Catalog Explorer, managing and cleaning data in Unity Catalog, importing data, executing queries with Databricks SQL, analyzing query performance, AI/BI dashboards and visualizations, Genie spaces, data modeling and securing data. You have 115 minutes, noticeably more than the real exam allows, because the point here is to read every explanation rather than to race. The passing grade is set at 80%, higher than you are likely to need on the real exam, so that a pass here means real headroom rather than a coin flip. Every answer option carries its own feedback, and every question ends with a link to the official Databricks documentation.
In Practice: Everyday Analyst Scenarios
50 questions · 110 minutes · pass mark 80%
The same nine sections, now framed as short workplace situations. Each question puts you in front of a decision a Databricks analyst actually makes: which warehouse type fits a bursty workload, what a LEFT JOIN returns when half the rows do not match, where NULL values end up in a sorted report, which cache explains an instant second run, which permission level a colleague really needs. The emphasis is on telling neighbouring features apart, because that is where most marks are lost: managed against external tables, views against materialized views, disk cache against result cache, field filters against parameter filters. 110 minutes for 50 questions. Passing grade 80%. Read the per-option feedback even for questions you answered correctly, since the value is in knowing why the other three options are wrong.
Trade-offs: Choosing Between Close Alternatives
50 questions · 105 minutes · pass mark 80%
Every question here offers at least two defensible options, and a single constraint decides between them. A source that only ever receives appends points to a streaming table; a source with updates and deletes points to a materialized view. A partner without Databricks rules out one sharing mode. A filter that has to cut data before a join rules out one filter type. A query profile insight about spilling points to a bigger cluster, while one about queueing points to more of them. This is the level at which the real exam separates candidates who have read the documentation from candidates who have used the product. 105 minutes for 50 questions, passing grade 80%. Expect to spend longer on each stem than in the first two tests, and expect the explanations to be worth reading in full.
Under the Hood: Defaults, Limits and Syntax
50 questions · 100 minutes · pass mark 80%
Exact values, documented defaults and precise syntax. How many workers a Large warehouse has, what auto stop defaults to on serverless against pro, how many files the create-a-table upload flow accepts, which two values the certification tag takes, how many grouping sets ROLLUP and CUBE produce, what CREATE OR REPLACE preserves, which clone type is the default, how long lineage lives in the system tables, and the thirty-day against seven-day retention difference that quietly breaks time travel after a VACUUM. These are the questions that are easy to get wrong when you have only read about a feature, and easy to get right once you have seen the number once. 100 minutes for 50 questions, passing grade 80%. Nothing here is trivia: every fact is one the documentation states plainly and the exam is entitled to ask about.
Exam Day: Full-Length Readiness Simulation
50 questions · 90 minutes · pass mark 85%
The readiness gate. Save this one until you are consistently passing the first four. Stems are long, several constraints apply at once, and the nine sections are mixed rather than grouped, exactly as they are on exam day. The time limit is 90 minutes, the same as the real exam, for 50 questions rather than 45, so you get slightly less time per question than you will on the day. The passing grade is 85% rather than 80%, because Databricks does not publish its passing score and a comfortable margin is the only sensible response to that. Sit this one in a single uninterrupted session, with no notes and no documentation open. If you clear 85% here under those conditions, you are ready to book. If you do not, your score report per section will tell you precisely where to go back.
What you will practice
- Test your readiness for the Databricks Certified Data Analyst Associate exam with 250 questions across all nine sections of the October 2025 guide.
- Tell close Databricks features apart: managed vs external tables, views vs materialized views, streaming tables, and the four query caches.
- Understand why every option is right or wrong through per-answer feedback and an explanation linking to the official Databricks documentation.
- Build up through four graded tests, then prove readiness on a timed full-length simulation scored at a deliberately strict 85%.
- Read your score per exam section after every attempt, so revision goes to the domain that is actually costing you marks.
- Practise Unity Catalog privileges, the three-level namespace, row filters, column masks and dynamic views the way the exam asks about them.
- Work through AI/BI dashboards, alerts, parameters and Genie spaces, the newest and least covered parts of this exam.
Exam domains covered
Who is this for
Data analysts, BI developers and reporting specialists who work in Databricks SQL and want the certification on record. Data engineers and analytics engineers adding a formal credential. Consultants and partner staff who need the certification for a partner tier. Students and career changers moving into analytics who want a cloud-neutral credential that is genuinely about analysis rather than infrastructure. Also anyone who prepared for the older version of this exam and stopped: that version retired on 29 September 2025. The exam went from five sections to nine, the Analytics Applications section disappeared without a successor, and Importing Data, AI/BI Genie Spaces, Data Modeling with Databricks SQL and Securing Data were added. Material written for the old blueprint will prepare you for an exam that no longer exists.
What this is: a question bank that tests and explains, with 250 questions written against the exam guide effective 30 October 2025, each answer option explained and each question sourced to Databricks documentation. What it is not: a training course, a video series, or a set of real exam questions. It will not teach you Databricks from scratch, and nobody can promise you a pass.
Requirements
- No prior Databricks certification is needed. Basic SQL, at the level of SELECT, JOIN and GROUP BY, will make the questions much easier to follow.
- Some hands-on time in a Databricks workspace helps. Databricks Free Edition is free forever and includes Databricks SQL, AI/BI dashboards and Genie, which covers most of the exam. Note that Community Edition was retired on 1 January 2026 and is no longer an option.
- These are practice exams, not a course. They work alongside the free official Databricks Academy material and the product documentation, not instead of them.
Free exam guide
Not sure what to expect? Read how the exam is built, what it covers and how to prepare.