Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Practice Exams
Last updated on Oct 09,2026- Exam Code: Professional Machine Learning Engineer
- Exam Name: Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer
- Certification Provider: Google
- Latest update: Oct 09,2026
You work for a large hotel chain and have been asked to assist the marketing team in gathering predictions for a targeted marketing strategy. You need to make predictions about user lifetime value (LTV) over the next 30 days so that marketing can be adjusted accordingly. The customer dataset is in BigQuery, and you are preparing the tabular data for training with AutoML Tables. This data has a time signal that is spread across multiple columns.
How should you ensure that AutoML fits the best model to your data?
- A . Manually combine all columns that contain a time signal into an array Allow AutoML to interpret this array appropriately Choose an automatic data split across the training, validation, and testing sets
- B . Submit the data for training without performing any manual transformations Allow AutoML to handle the appropriate transformations Choose an automatic data split across the training, validation, and testing sets
- C . Submit the data for training without performing any manual transformations, and indicate an appropriate column as the Time column Allow AutoML to split your data based on the time signal provided, and reserve the more recent data for the validation and testing sets
- D . Submit the data for training without performing any manual transformations Use the columns that have a time signal to manually split your data Ensure that the data in your validation set is from 30 days after the data in your training set and that the data in your testing set is from 30 days after your validation set
C
Explanation:
This answer is correct because it allows AutoML Tables to handle the time signal in the data and split the data accordingly. This ensures that the model is trained on the historical data and evaluated on the more recent data, which is consistent with the prediction task. AutoML Tables can automatically detect and handle temporal features in the data, such as date, time, and duration. By specifying the Time column, AutoML Tables can also perform time-series forecasting and use the time signal to generate additional features, such as seasonality and trend.
Reference: [AutoML Tables: Preparing your training data]
[AutoML Tables: Time-series forecasting]
You recently deployed a scikit-learn model to a Vertex Al endpoint You are now testing the model on live production traffic While monitoring the endpoint. you discover twice as many requests per hour than expected throughout the day You want the endpoint to efficiently scale when the demand increases in the future to prevent users from experiencing high latency
What should you do?
- A . Deploy two models to the same endpoint and distribute requests among them evenly.
- B . Configure an appropriate minReplicaCount value based on expected baseline traffic.
- C . Set the target utilization percentage in the autcscalir.gMetricspecs configuration to a higher value
- D . Change the model’s machine type to one that utilizes GPUs.
B
Explanation:
The best option for scaling a Vertex AI endpoint efficiently when the demand increases in the future, using a scikit-learn model that is deployed to a Vertex AI endpoint and tested on live production traffic, is to configure an appropriate minReplicaCount value based on expected baseline traffic. This option allows you to leverage the power and simplicity of Vertex AI to automatically scale your endpoint resources according to the traffic patterns. Vertex AI is a unified platform for building and deploying machine learning solutions on Google Cloud. Vertex AI can deploy a trained model to an online prediction endpoint, which can provide low-latency predictions for individual instances. Vertex AI can also provide various tools and services for data analysis, model development, model deployment, model monitoring, and model governance. A minReplicaCount value is a parameter that specifies the minimum number of replicas that the endpoint must always have, regardless of the load. A minReplicaCount value can help you ensure that the endpoint has enough resources to handle the expected baseline traffic, and avoid high latency or errors. By configuring an appropriate minReplicaCount value based on expected baseline traffic, you can scale your endpoint efficiently when the demand increases in the future. You can set the minReplicaCount value when you deploy the model to the endpoint, or update it later. Vertex AI will automatically scale up or down the number of replicas within the range of the minReplicaCount and maxReplicaCount values, based on the target utilization percentage and the autoscaling metric1.
The other options are not as good as option B, for the following reasons:
Option A: Deploying two models to the same endpoint and distributing requests among them evenly would not allow you to scale your endpoint efficiently when the demand increases in the future, and could increase the complexity and cost of the deployment process. A model is a resource that represents a machine learning model that you can use for prediction. A model can have one or more versions, which are different implementations of the same model. A model version can help you experiment and iterate on your model, and improve the model performance and accuracy. An endpoint is a resource that provides the service endpoint (URL) you use to request the prediction. An endpoint can have one or more deployed models, which are instances of model versions that are associated with physical resources. A deployed model can help you serve online predictions with low latency, and scale up or down based on the traffic. By deploying two models to the same endpoint and distributing requests among them evenly, you can create a load balancing mechanism that can distribute the traffic across the models, and reduce the load on each model. However, deploying two models to the same endpoint and distributing requests among them evenly would not allow you to scale your endpoint efficiently when the demand increases in the future, and could increase the complexity and cost of the deployment process. You would need to write code, create and configure the two models, deploy the models to the same endpoint, and distribute the requests among them evenly. Moreover, this option would not use the autoscaling feature of Vertex AI, which can automatically adjust the number of replicas based on the traffic patterns, and provide various benefits, such as optimal resource utilization, cost savings, and performance improvement2.
Option C: Setting the target utilization percentage in the autoscalingMetricSpecs configuration to a higher value would not allow you to scale your endpoint efficiently when the demand increases in the future, and could cause errors or poor performance. A target utilization percentage is a parameter that specifies the desired utilization level of each replica. A target utilization percentage can affect the speed and accuracy of the autoscaling process. A higher target utilization percentage can help you reduce the number of replicas, but it can also cause high latency, low throughput, or resource exhaustion. By setting the target utilization percentage in the autoscalingMetricSpecs configuration to a higher value, you can increase the utilization level of each replica, and save some resources. However, setting the target utilization percentage in the autoscalingMetricSpecs configuration to a higher value would not allow you to scale your endpoint efficiently when the demand increases in the future, and could cause errors or poor performance. You would need to write code, create and configure the autoscalingMetricSpecs, and set the target utilization percentage to a higher value. Moreover, this option would not ensure that the endpoint has enough resources to handle the expected baseline traffic, which could cause high latency or errors1.
Option D: Changing the model’s machine type to one that utilizes GPUs would not allow you to scale your endpoint efficiently when the demand increases in the future, and could increase the complexity and cost of the deployment process. A machine type is a parameter that specifies the type of virtual machine that the prediction service uses for the deployed model. A machine type can affect the speed and accuracy of the prediction process. A machine type that utilizes GPUs can help you accelerate the computation and processing of the prediction, and handle more prediction requests at the same time. By changing the model’s machine type to one that utilizes GPUs, you can improve the prediction performance and efficiency of your model. However, changing the model’s machine type to one that utilizes GPUs would not allow you to scale your endpoint efficiently when the demand increases in the future, and could increase the complexity and cost of the deployment process. You would need to write code, create and configure the model, deploy the model to the endpoint, and change the machine type to one that utilizes GPUs. Moreover, this option would not use the autoscaling feature of Vertex AI, which can automatically adjust the number of replicas based on the traffic patterns, and provide various benefits, such as optimal resource utilization, cost savings, and performance improvement2.
Reference: Configure compute resources for prediction | Vertex AI | Google Cloud Deploy a model to an endpoint | Vertex AI | Google Cloud
Use Cloud Scheduler and Cloud Functions to run the Vertex Al pipeline weekly.
Explanation:
The best way to operationalize your training process is to use Vertex AI Pipelines, which allows you to create and run scalable, portable, and reproducible workflows for your ML models. Vertex AI Pipelines also integrates with Vertex AI Metadata, which tracks the provenance, lineage, and artifacts of your ML models. By using a Vertex AI CustomTrainingJobOp component, you can train your model using the same code as in your Jupyter notebook. By using a ModelUploadOp component, you can upload your trained model to Vertex AI Model Registry, which manages the versions and endpoints of your models. By using Cloud Scheduler and Cloud Functions, you can trigger your Vertex AI pipeline to run weekly, according to your plan.
Reference: Vertex AI Pipelines documentation
Vertex AI Metadata documentation
Vertex AI CustomTrainingJobOp documentation
ModelUploadOp documentation
Cloud Scheduler documentation
[Cloud Functions documentation]
Use Cloud Scheduler and Cloud Functions to run the Vertex Al pipeline weekly.
Explanation:
The best way to operationalize your training process is to use Vertex AI Pipelines, which allows you to create and run scalable, portable, and reproducible workflows for your ML models. Vertex AI Pipelines also integrates with Vertex AI Metadata, which tracks the provenance, lineage, and artifacts of your ML models. By using a Vertex AI CustomTrainingJobOp component, you can train your model using the same code as in your Jupyter notebook. By using a ModelUploadOp component, you can upload your trained model to Vertex AI Model Registry, which manages the versions and endpoints of your models. By using Cloud Scheduler and Cloud Functions, you can trigger your Vertex AI pipeline to run weekly, according to your plan.
Reference: Vertex AI Pipelines documentation
Vertex AI Metadata documentation
Vertex AI CustomTrainingJobOp documentation
ModelUploadOp documentation
Cloud Scheduler documentation
[Cloud Functions documentation]
You work for a delivery company. You need to design a system that stores and manages features such as parcels delivered and truck locations over time. The system must retrieve the features with low latency and feed those features into a model for online prediction. The data science team will retrieve historical data at a specific point in time for model training. You want to store the features with minimal effort.
What should you do?
- A . Store features in Bigtable as key/value data.
- B . Store features in Vertex Al Feature Store.
- C . Store features as a Vertex Al dataset and use those features to tram the models hosted in Vertex Al endpoints.
- D . Store features in BigQuery timestamp partitioned tables, and use the BigQuery Storage Read API to serve the features.
B
Explanation:
Vertex AI Feature Store is a service that allows you to store and manage your ML features on Google Cloud. You can use Vertex AI Feature Store to store features such as parcels delivered and truck locations over time, and retrieve them with low latency for online prediction. Online prediction is a type of prediction that provides low-latency responses to individual or small batches of input data. You can also use Vertex AI Feature Store to retrieve historical data at a specific point in time for model training. Model training is a process of learning the parameters of a ML model from data. By using Vertex AI Feature Store, you can store the features with minimal effort, and avoid the complexity of managing your own data storage and serving system.
Reference: Vertex AI Feature Store documentation
Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate
You work for a delivery company. You need to design a system that stores and manages features such as parcels delivered and truck locations over time. The system must retrieve the features with low latency and feed those features into a model for online prediction. The data science team will retrieve historical data at a specific point in time for model training. You want to store the features with minimal effort.
What should you do?
- A . Store features in Bigtable as key/value data.
- B . Store features in Vertex Al Feature Store.
- C . Store features as a Vertex Al dataset and use those features to tram the models hosted in Vertex Al endpoints.
- D . Store features in BigQuery timestamp partitioned tables, and use the BigQuery Storage Read API to serve the features.
B
Explanation:
Vertex AI Feature Store is a service that allows you to store and manage your ML features on Google Cloud. You can use Vertex AI Feature Store to store features such as parcels delivered and truck locations over time, and retrieve them with low latency for online prediction. Online prediction is a type of prediction that provides low-latency responses to individual or small batches of input data. You can also use Vertex AI Feature Store to retrieve historical data at a specific point in time for model training. Model training is a process of learning the parameters of a ML model from data. By using Vertex AI Feature Store, you can store the features with minimal effort, and avoid the complexity of managing your own data storage and serving system.
Reference: Vertex AI Feature Store documentation
Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate
You work for a delivery company. You need to design a system that stores and manages features such as parcels delivered and truck locations over time. The system must retrieve the features with low latency and feed those features into a model for online prediction. The data science team will retrieve historical data at a specific point in time for model training. You want to store the features with minimal effort.
What should you do?
- A . Store features in Bigtable as key/value data.
- B . Store features in Vertex Al Feature Store.
- C . Store features as a Vertex Al dataset and use those features to tram the models hosted in Vertex Al endpoints.
- D . Store features in BigQuery timestamp partitioned tables, and use the BigQuery Storage Read API to serve the features.
B
Explanation:
Vertex AI Feature Store is a service that allows you to store and manage your ML features on Google Cloud. You can use Vertex AI Feature Store to store features such as parcels delivered and truck locations over time, and retrieve them with low latency for online prediction. Online prediction is a type of prediction that provides low-latency responses to individual or small batches of input data. You can also use Vertex AI Feature Store to retrieve historical data at a specific point in time for model training. Model training is a process of learning the parameters of a ML model from data. By using Vertex AI Feature Store, you can store the features with minimal effort, and avoid the complexity of managing your own data storage and serving system.
Reference: Vertex AI Feature Store documentation
Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate
You are profiling the performance of your TensorFlow model training time and notice a performance issue caused by inefficiencies in the input data pipeline for a single 5 terabyte CSV file dataset on Cloud Storage. You need to optimize the input pipeline performance.
Which action should you try first to increase the efficiency of your pipeline?
- A . Preprocess the input CSV file into a TFRecord file.
- B . Randomly select a 10 gigabyte subset of the data to train your model.
- C . Split into multiple CSV files and use a parallel interleave transformation.
- D . Set the reshuffle_each_iteration parameter to true in the tf.data.Dataset.shuffle method.
A
Explanation:
According to the web search results, the TFRecord format is a recommended way to store large amounts of data efficiently and improve the performance of the data input pipeline123. The TFRecord format is a binary format that can be compressed and serialized, which reduces the I/O overhead and the memory footprint of the data1. The tf.data API provides tools to create and read TFRecord files easily1.
The other options are not as effective as option A.
Option B would reduce the amount of data available for training and might affect the model accuracy.
Option C would still require reading from a single CSV file at a time, which might not utilize the full bandwidth of the remote storage.
Option D would only affect the order of the data elements, not the speed of reading them.
You recently developed a wide and deep model in TensorFlow. You generated training datasets using a SQL script that preprocessed raw data in BigQuery by performing instance-level transformations of the data. You need to create a training pipeline to retrain the model on a weekly basis. The trained model will be used to generate daily recommendations. You want to minimize model development and training time.
How should you develop the training pipeline?
- A . Use the Kubeflow Pipelines SDK to implement the pipeline Use the BigQueryJobop component to run the preprocessing script and the customTrainingJobop component to launch a Vertex Al training job.
- B . Use the Kubeflow Pipelines SDK to implement the pipeline. Use the dataflowpythonjobopcomponent to preprocess the data and the customTraining JobOp component to launch a Vertex Al training job.
- C . Use the TensorFlow Extended SDK to implement the pipeline Use the Examplegen component with the BigQuery executor to ingest the data the Transform component to preprocess the data, and the Trainer component to launch a Vertex Al training job.
- D . Use the TensorFlow Extended SDK to implement the pipeline Implement the preprocessing steps as part of the input_fn of the model Use the ExampleGen component with the BigQuery executor to ingest the data and the Trainer component to launch a Vertex Al training job.
You are developing an ML model using a dataset with categorical input variables. You have randomly split half of the data into training and test sets. After applying one-hot encoding on the categorical variables in the training set, you discover that one categorical variable is missing from the test set.
What should you do?
- A . Randomly redistribute the data, with 70% for the training set and 30% for the test set
- B . Use sparse representation in the test set
- C . Apply one-hot encoding on the categorical variables in the test data.
- D . Collect more data representing all categories
C
Explanation:
The best option for dealing with the missing categorical variable in the test set is to apply one-hot encoding on the categorical variables in the test data. This option has the following advantages: It ensures the consistency and compatibility of the data format for the ML model, as the one-hot encoding transforms the categorical variables into binary vectors that can be easily processed by the model. By applying one-hot encoding on the categorical variables in the test data, you can match the number and order of the features in the test data with the training data, and avoid any errors or discrepancies in the model prediction.
It preserves the information and relevance of the data for the ML model, as the one-hot encoding creates a separate feature for each possible value of the categorical variable, and assigns a value of 1 to the feature corresponding to the actual value of the variable, and 0 to the rest. By applying one-hot encoding on the categorical variables in the test data, you can retain the original meaning and importance of the categorical variable, and avoid any loss or distortion of the data. The other options are less optimal for the following reasons:
Option A: Randomly redistributing the data, with 70% for the training set and 30% for the test set, introduces additional complexity and risk. This option requires reshuffling and splitting the data again, which can be tedious and time-consuming. Moreover, this option may not guarantee that the missing categorical variable will be present in the test set, as it depends on the randomness of the data distribution. Furthermore, this option may affect the quality and validity of the ML model, as it may change the data characteristics and patterns that the model has learned from the original training set.
Option B: Using sparse representation in the test set introduces additional overhead and inefficiency. This option requires converting the categorical variables in the test set into sparse vectors, which are vectors that have mostly zero values and only store the indices and values of the non-zero elements. However, using sparse representation in the test set may not be compatible with the ML model, as the model expects the input data to have the same format and dimensionality as the training data, which uses one-hot encoding. Moreover, using sparse representation in the test set may not be efficient or scalable, as it requires additional computation and memory to store and process the sparse vectors.
Option D: Collecting more data representing all categories introduces additional cost and delay. This option requires obtaining and labeling more data that contains the missing categorical variable, which can be expensive and time-consuming. Moreover, this option may not be feasible or necessary, as the missing categorical variable may not be available or relevant for the test data, depending on the data source or the business problem.