Amazon MLS-C01 Practice Exams
Last updated on Oct 23,2026- Exam Code: MLS-C01
- Exam Name: AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty
- Certification Provider: Amazon
- Latest update: Oct 23,2026
A Machine Learning Specialist wants to determine the appropriate SageMaker Variant Invocations Per Instance setting for an endpoint automatic scaling configuration. The Specialist has performed a load test on a single instance and determined that peak requests per second (RPS) without service degradation is about 20 RPS As this is the first deployment, the Specialist intends to set the invocation safety factor to 0 5
Based on the stated parameters and given that the invocations per instance setting is measured on a per-minute basis, what should the Specialist set as the sageMaker variant invocations Per instance setting?
- A . 10
- B . 30
- C . 600
- D . 2,400
C
Explanation:
The SageMaker Variant Invocations Per Instance setting is the target value for the average number of invocations per instance per minute for the model variant. It is used by the automatic scaling policy to add or remove instances to keep the metric close to the specified value. To determine this value, the following equation can be used in combination with load testing: SageMakerVariantInvocationsPerInstance = (MAX_RPS * SAFETY_FACTOR) * 60
Where MAX_RPS is the maximum requests per second that the model variant can handle without service degradation, SAFETY_FACTOR is a factor that ensures that the clients do not exceed the maximum RPS, and 60 is the conversion factor from seconds to minutes. In this case, the given parameters are:
MAX_RPS = 20 SAFETY_FACTOR = 0.5
Plugging these values into the equation, we get:
SageMakerVariantInvocationsPerInstance = (20 * 0.5) * 60 SageMakerVariantInvocationsPerInstance = 600
Therefore, the Specialist should set the SageMaker Variant Invocations Per Instance setting to 600.
References:
Load testing your auto scaling configuration – Amazon SageMaker Configure model auto scaling with the console – Amazon SageMaker
The Chief Editor for a product catalog wants the Research and Development team to build a machine learning system that can be used to detect whether or not individuals in a collection of images are wearing the company’s retail brand. The team has a set of training data
Which machine learning algorithm should the researchers use that BEST meets their requirements?
- A . Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)
- B . Recurrent neural network (RNN)
- C . K-means
- D . Convolutional neural network (CNN)
D
Explanation:
A convolutional neural network (CNN) is a type of machine learning algorithm that is suitable for image classification tasks. A CNN consists of multiple layers that can extract features from images and learn to recognize patterns and objects. A CNN can also use transfer learning to leverage pre-trained models that have been trained on large-scale image datasets, such as ImageNet, and fine-tune them for specific tasks, such as detecting the company’s retail brand. A CNN can achieve high accuracy and performance for image classification problems, as it can handle complex and diverse images and reduce the dimensionality and noise of the input data. A CNN can be implemented using various frameworks and libraries, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras, MXNet, etc12
The other options are not valid or relevant for the image classification task. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) is a type of machine learning algorithm that is suitable for topic modeling tasks. LDA can discover the hidden topics and their proportions in a collection of text documents, such as news articles, tweets, reviews, etc. LDA is not applicable for image data, as it requires textual input and output. LDA can be implemented using various frameworks and libraries, such as Gensim, Scikit-learn, Mallet, etc34
Recurrent neural network (RNN) is a type of machine learning algorithm that is suitable for sequential data tasks. RNN can process and generate data that has temporal or sequential dependencies, such as natural language, speech, audio, video, etc. RNN is not optimal for image data, as it does not capture the spatial features and relationships of the pixels. RNN can be implemented using various frameworks and libraries, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras, MXNet, etc.
K-means is a type of machine learning algorithm that is suitable for clustering tasks. K-means can partition a set of data points into a predefined number of clusters, based on the similarity and distance between the data points. K-means is not suitable for image classification tasks, as it does not learn to label the images or detect the objects of interest. K-means can be implemented using various frameworks and libraries, such as Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, etc.
A Machine Learning Specialist built an image classification deep learning model. However the Specialist ran into an overfitting problem in which the training and testing accuracies were 99% and 75%r respectively.
How should the Specialist address this issue and what is the reason behind it?
- A . The learning rate should be increased because the optimization process was trapped at a local minimum.
- B . The dropout rate at the flatten layer should be increased because the model is not generalized enough.
- C . The dimensionality of dense layer next to the flatten layer should be increased because the model is not complex enough.
- D . The epoch number should be increased because the optimization process was terminated before it reached the global minimum.
B
Explanation:
The best way to address the overfitting problem in image classification is to increase the dropout rate at the flatten layer because the model is not generalized enough. Dropout is a regularization technique that randomly drops out some units from the neural network during training, reducing the co-adaptation of features and preventing overfitting. The flatten layer is the layer that converts the output of the convolutional layers into a one-dimensional vector that can be fed into the dense layers. Increasing the dropout rate at the flatten layer means that more features from the convolutional layers will be ignored, forcing the model to learn more robust and generalizable representations from the remaining features.
The other options are not correct for this scenario because:
Increasing the learning rate would not help with the overfitting problem, as it would make the optimization process more unstable and prone to overshooting the global minimum. A high learning rate can also cause the model to diverge or oscillate around the optimal solution, resulting in poor performance and accuracy.
Increasing the dimensionality of the dense layer next to the flatten layer would not help with the overfitting problem, as it would make the model more complex and increase the number of parameters to be learned. A more complex model can fit the training data better, but it can also memorize the noise and irrelevant details in the data, leading to overfitting and poor generalization. Increasing the epoch number would not help with the overfitting problem, as it would make the model train longer and more likely to overfit the training data. A high epoch number can cause the model to converge to the global minimum, but it can also cause the model to over-optimize the training data and lose the ability to generalize to new data.
References:
Dropout: A Simple Way to Prevent Neural Networks from Overfitting.
How to Reduce Overfitting With Dropout Regularization in Keras
How to Control the Stability of Training Neural Networks With the Learning Rate
How to Choose the Number of Hidden Layers and Nodes in a Feedforward Neural Network?
How to decide the optimal number of epochs to train a neural network?
A company will use Amazon SageMaker to train and host a machine learning (ML) model for a marketing campaign. The majority of data is sensitive customer data. The data must be encrypted at rest. The company wants AWS to maintain the root of trust for the master keys and wants encryption key usage to be logged.
Which implementation will meet these requirements?
- A . Use encryption keys that are stored in AWS Cloud HSM to encrypt the ML data volumes, and to encrypt the model artifacts and data in Amazon S3.
- B . Use SageMaker built-in transient keys to encrypt the ML data volumes. Enable default encryption for new Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes.
- C . Use customer managed keys in AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) to encrypt the ML data volumes, and to encrypt the model artifacts and data in Amazon S3.
- D . Use AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) to create temporary tokens to encrypt the ML storage volumes, and to encrypt the model artifacts and data in Amazon S3.
C
Explanation:
Amazon SageMaker supports encryption at rest for the ML storage volumes, the model artifacts, and the data in Amazon S3 using AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS). AWS KMS is a service that allows customers to create and manage encryption keys that can be used to encrypt data. AWS KMS also provides an audit trail of key usage by logging key events to AWS CloudTrail. Customers can use either AWS managed keys or customer managed keys to encrypt their data. AWS managed keys are created and managed by AWS on behalf of the customer, while customer managed keys are created and managed by the customer. Customer managed keys offer more control and flexibility over the key policies, permissions, and rotation. Therefore, to meet the requirements of the company, the best option is to use customer managed keys in AWS KMS to encrypt the ML data volumes, and to encrypt the model artifacts and data in Amazon S3.
The other options are not correct because:
Option A: AWS Cloud HSM is a service that provides hardware security modules (HSMs) to store and use encryption keys. AWS Cloud HSM is not integrated with Amazon SageMaker, and cannot be used to encrypt the ML data volumes, the model artifacts, or the data in Amazon S3. AWS Cloud HSM is more suitable for customers who need to meet strict compliance requirements or who need direct control over the HSMs.
Option B: SageMaker built-in transient keys are temporary keys that are used to encrypt the ML data volumes and are discarded immediately after encryption. These keys do not provide persistent encryption or logging of key usage. Enabling default encryption for new Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes does not affect the ML data volumes, which are encrypted separately by SageMaker. Moreover, this option does not address the encryption of the model artifacts and data in Amazon S3.
Option D: AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) is a service that provides temporary credentials to access AWS resources. AWS STS does not provide encryption keys or encryption services. AWS STS cannot be used to encrypt the ML storage volumes, the model artifacts, or the data in Amazon S3.
References:
Protect Data at Rest Using Encryption – Amazon SageMaker
What is AWS Key Management Service? – AWS Key Management Service.
What is AWS CloudHSM? – AWS CloudHSM
What is AWS Security Token Service? – AWS Security Token Service
A Machine Learning Specialist is developing a custom video recommendation model for an application. The dataset used to train this model is very large with millions of data points and is hosted in an Amazon S3 bucket. The Specialist wants to avoid loading all of this data onto an Amazon SageMaker notebook instance because it would take hours to move and will exceed the attached 5 GB Amazon EBS volume on the notebook instance.
Which approach allows the Specialist to use all the data to train the model?
- A . Load a smaller subset of the data into the SageMaker notebook and train locally. Confirm that the training code is executing and the model parameters seem reasonable. Initiate a SageMaker training job using the full dataset from the S3 bucket using Pipe input mode.
- B . Launch an Amazon EC2 instance with an AWS Deep Learning AMI and attach the S3 bucket to the instance. Train on a small amount of the data to verify the training code and hyperparameters. Go back to
Amazon SageMaker and train using the full dataset - C . Use AWS Glue to train a model using a small subset of the data to confirm that the data will be compatible with Amazon SageMaker. Initiate a SageMaker training job using the full dataset from the S3 bucket using Pipe input mode.
- D . Load a smaller subset of the data into the SageMaker notebook and train locally. Confirm that the training code is executing and the model parameters seem reasonable. Launch an Amazon EC2 instance with an AWS Deep Learning AMI and attach the S3 bucket to train the full dataset.
A
Explanation:
Pipe input mode is a feature of Amazon SageMaker that allows streaming large datasets from Amazon S3 directly to the training algorithm without downloading them to the local disk. This reduces the startup time, disk space, and cost of training jobs. Pipe input mode is supported by most of the built-in algorithms and can also be used with custom training algorithms. To use Pipe input mode, the data needs to be in a binary format such as protobuf recordIO or TFRecord. The training code needs to use the PipeModeDataset class to read the data from the named pipe provided by SageMaker. To verify that the training code and the model parameters are working as expected, it is recommended to train locally on a smaller subset of the data before launching a full-scale training job on SageMaker. This approach is faster and more efficient than the other options, which involve either downloading the full dataset to an EC2 instance or using AWS Glue, which is not designed for training machine learning models.
References:
Using Pipe input mode for Amazon SageMaker algorithms Using Pipe Mode with Your Own Algorithms PipeModeDataset Class
An ecommerce company wants to train a large image classification model with 10.000 classes. The company runs multiple model training iterations and needs to minimize operational overhead and cost. The company also needs to avoid loss of work and model retraining.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Create the training jobs as AWS Batch jobs that use Amazon EC2 Spot Instances in a managed compute environment.
- B . Use Amazon EC2 Spot Instances to run the training jobs. Use a Spot Instance interruption notice to save a snapshot of the model to Amazon S3 before an instance is terminated.
- C . Use AWS Lambda to run the training jobs. Save model weights to Amazon S3.
- D . Use managed spot training in Amazon SageMaker. Launch the training jobs with checkpointing enabled.
D
Explanation:
Amazon SageMaker managed spot training allows for cost-effective training by utilizing Spot Instances, which are lower-cost EC2 instances that can be interrupted when demand is high. By enabling checkpointing in SageMaker, the company can save intermediate model states to Amazon S3, allowing training to resume from the last checkpoint if interrupted. This solution minimizes operational overhead by automating the checkpointing process and resuming work after interruptions, reducing the need for retraining from scratch.
This setup provides a reliable and cost-efficient approach to training large models with minimal operational overhead and risk of data loss.
A machine learning specialist stores IoT soil sensor data in Amazon DynamoDB table and stores weather event data as JSON files in Amazon S3. The dataset in DynamoDB is 10 GB in size and the dataset in Amazon S3 is 5 GB in size. The specialist wants to train a model on this data to help predict soil moisture levels as a function of weather events using Amazon SageMaker.
Which solution will accomplish the necessary transformation to train the Amazon SageMaker model with the LEAST amount of administrative overhead?
- A . Launch an Amazon EMR cluster. Create an Apache Hive external table for the DynamoDB table and S3 data. Join the Hive tables and write the results out to Amazon S3.
- B . Crawl the data using AWS Glue crawlers. Write an AWS Glue ETL job that merges the two tables and writes the output to an Amazon Redshift cluster.
- C . Enable Amazon DynamoDB Streams on the sensor table. Write an AWS Lambda function that consumes the stream and appends the results to the existing weather files in Amazon S3.
- D . Crawl the data using AWS Glue crawlers. Write an AWS Glue ETL job that merges the two tables and writes the output in CSV format to Amazon S3.
D
Explanation:
The solution that will accomplish the necessary transformation to train the Amazon SageMaker model with the least amount of administrative overhead is to crawl the data using AWS Glue crawlers, write an AWS Glue ETL job that merges the two tables and writes the output in CSV format to Amazon S3. This solution leverages the serverless capabilities of AWS Glue to automatically discover the schema of the data sources, and to perform the data integration and transformation without requiring any cluster management or configuration. The output in CSV format is compatible with Amazon SageMaker and can be easily loaded into a training job.
References: AWS Glue, Amazon SageMaker
A company that manufactures mobile devices wants to determine and calibrate the appropriate sales price for its devices. The company is collecting the relevant data and is determining data features that it can use to train machine learning (ML) models. There are more than 1,000 features, and the company wants to determine the primary features that contribute to the sales price.
Which techniques should the company use for feature selection? (Choose three.)
- A . Data scaling with standardization and normalization
- B . Correlation plot with heat maps
- C . Data binning
- D . Univariate selection
- E . Feature importance with a tree-based classifier
- F . Data augmentation
B, D, E
Explanation:
Feature selection is the process of selecting a subset of extracted features that are relevant and contribute to minimizing the error rate of a trained model.
Some techniques for feature selection are:
Correlation plot with heat maps: This technique visualizes the correlation between features using a color-coded matrix. Features that are highly correlated with each other or with the target variable can be identified and removed to reduce redundancy and noise.
Univariate selection: This technique evaluates each feature individually based on a statistical test, such as chi-square, ANOVA, or mutual information, and selects the features that have the highest scores or p-values. This technique is simple and fast, but it does not consider the interactions between features.
Feature importance with a tree-based classifier: This technique uses a tree-based classifier, such as random forest or gradient boosting, to rank the features based on their importance in splitting the nodes. Features that have low importance scores can be dropped from the model. This technique can capture the non-linear relationships and interactions between features.
The other options are not techniques for feature selection, but rather for feature engineering, which is the process of creating, transforming, or extracting features from the original data. Feature engineering can improve the performance and interpretability of the model, but it does not reduce the number of features.
Data scaling with standardization and normalization: This technique transforms the features to have a common scale, such as zero mean and unit variance, or a range between 0 and 1. This technique can help some algorithms, such as k-means or logistic regression, to converge faster and avoid numerical instability, but it does not change the number of features.
Data binning: This technique groups the continuous features into discrete bins or categories based on some criteria, such as equal width, equal frequency, or clustering. This technique can reduce the noise and outliers in the data, and also create ordinal or nominal features that can be used for some algorithms, such as decision trees or naive Bayes, but it does not reduce the number of features.
Data augmentation: This technique generates new data from the existing data by applying some transformations, such as rotation, flipping, cropping, or noise addition. This technique can increase the size and diversity of the data, and help prevent overfitting, but it does not reduce the number of features.
References:
Feature engineering – Machine Learning Lens
Amazon SageMaker Autopilot now provides feature selection and the ability to change data types while creating an AutoML experiment
Feature Selection in Machine Learning | Baeldung on Computer Science Feature Selection in Machine Learning: An easy Introduction
A logistics company needs a forecast model to predict next month’s inventory requirements for a single item in 10 warehouses. A machine learning specialist uses Amazon Forecast to develop a forecast model from 3 years of monthly data. There is no missing data. The specialist selects the DeepAR+ algorithm to train a predictor. The predictor means absolute percentage error (MAPE) is much larger than the MAPE produced by the current human forecasters.
Which changes to the CreatePredictor API call could improve the MAPE? (Choose two.)
- A . Set PerformAutoML to true.
- B . Set ForecastHorizon to 4.
- C . Set ForecastFrequency to W for weekly.
- D . Set PerformHPO to true.
- E . Set FeaturizationMethodName to filling.
A, D
Explanation:
The MAPE of the predictor could be improved by making the following changes to the CreatePredictor API call:
Set PerformAutoML to true. This will allow Amazon Forecast to automatically evaluate different algorithms and choose the one that minimizes the objective function, which is the mean of the weighted losses over the forecast types. By default, these are the p10, p50, and p90 quantile losses1. This option can help find a better algorithm than DeepAR+ for the given data.
Set PerformHPO to true. This will enable hyperparameter optimization (HPO), which is the process of finding the optimal values for the algorithm-specific parameters that affect the quality of the forecasts. HPO can improve the accuracy of the predictor by tuning the hyperparameters based on the training data2.
The other options are not likely to improve the MAPE of the predictor. Setting ForecastHorizon to 4 will reduce the number of time steps that the model predicts, which may not match the business requirement of predicting next month’s inventory. Setting ForecastFrequency to W for weekly will change the granularity of the forecasts, which may not be appropriate for the monthly data. Setting FeaturizationMethodName to filling will not have any effect, since there is no missing data in the dataset.
References:
CreatePredictor – Amazon Forecast
HPOConfig – Amazon Forecast
A data engineer is preparing a dataset that a retail company will use to predict the number of visitors to stores. The data engineer created an Amazon S3 bucket. The engineer subscribed the S3 bucket to an AWS Data Exchange data product for general economic indicators. The data engineer wants to join the economic indicator data to an existing table in Amazon Athena to merge with the business dat a. All these transformations must finish running in 30-60 minutes.
Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?
- A . Configure the AWS Data Exchange product as a producer for an Amazon Kinesis data stream. Use an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream to transfer the data to Amazon S3 Run an AWS Glue job that will merge the existing business data with the Athena table. Write the result set back to Amazon S3.
- B . Use an S3 event on the AWS Data Exchange S3 bucket to invoke an AWS Lambda function. Program the Lambda function to use Amazon SageMaker Data Wrangler to merge the existing business data with the Athena table. Write the result set back to Amazon S3.
- C . Use an S3 event on the AWS Data Exchange S3 bucket to invoke an AWS Lambda Function Program the Lambda function to run an AWS Glue job that will merge the existing business data with the Athena table Write the results back to Amazon S3.
- D . Provision an Amazon Redshift cluster. Subscribe to the AWS Data Exchange product and use the product to create an Amazon Redshift Table Merge the data in Amazon Redshift. Write the results back to Amazon S3.
B
Explanation:
The most cost-effective solution is to use an S3 event to trigger a Lambda function that uses SageMaker Data Wrangler to merge the data. This solution avoids the need to provision and manage any additional resources, such as Kinesis streams, Firehose delivery streams, Glue jobs, or Redshift clusters. SageMaker Data Wrangler provides a visual interface to import, prepare, transform, and analyze data from various sources, including AWS Data Exchange products. It can also export the data preparation workflow to a Python script that can be executed by a Lambda function. This solution can meet the time requirement of 30-60 minutes, depending on the size and complexity of the data.
References:
Using Amazon S3 Event Notifications
Prepare ML Data with Amazon SageMaker Data Wrangler AWS Lambda Function