Associate Cloud Engineer Detailed Exam Domain Coverage

To ensure you are fully prepared, these practice exams are balanced according to the official Google Cloud blueprint:

Setting Up Cloud Environment (18%): Projects, Billing accounts, IAM, APIs, and Cloud SDK installation and configuration.
Planning & Configuring Solutions (20%): Compute resources, Data solutions, Network resources, and the Pricing Calculator.
Deploying & Implementing (27%): Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), App Engine, Cloud Functions, and Data solutions.
Ensuring Successful Operations (20%): Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging, Diagnostics, and Resource management.
Configuring Access & Security (15%): IAM, Service accounts, VPC security, Audit logs, and Encryption keys.

Course Description

Passing the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE) certification requires more than just reading documentation. It demands a practical understanding of how to apply GCP services to real-world scenarios. I created this comprehensive set of practice tests to mirror the actual exam's format, difficulty, and domain weighting.

My goal is to help you test your knowledge, identify any weak spots, and walk into your exam completely confident. Every single question in this bank includes a detailed explanation. I don't just tell you which answer is right; I break down exactly why the correct option is the best choice and why the other options fall short. This method ensures you actually understand the underlying cloud concepts rather than just memorizing answers.

Whether you are configuring IAM roles, deploying containerized applications to GKE, or debugging access issues with Cloud Logging, these questions reflect the daily tasks of a real Cloud Engineer. Use these tests to gauge your readiness and close your knowledge gaps.

Sample Practice Questions

Here is a preview of the types of questions and detailed explanations you will find inside the course:

Question 1: You need to deploy a highly scalable web application that runs in Docker containers. The traffic is highly unpredictable, and you want to minimize the operational overhead of managing underlying servers. Which Google Cloud service should you choose?

Correct Answer: C
Overall Explanation: The scenario requires running containerized applications with minimal infrastructure management (serverless) and automatic scaling for unpredictable traffic. Cloud Run is the purpose-built service for this exact use case.
Option A: Compute Engine – Incorrect. Compute Engine is IaaS. You would have to manually configure instances, manage the OS, and set up managed instance groups for scaling, which maximizes operational overhead rather than minimizing it.
Option B: Google Kubernetes Engine (Standard) – Incorrect. While GKE runs containers and scales well, the Standard tier requires you to manage the underlying node pools, which introduces significant operational overhead.
Option C: Cloud Run – Correct. Cloud Run is a fully managed, serverless compute platform that abstracts away all infrastructure management and scales Docker containers automatically based on incoming requests.
Option D: App Engine Flexible – Incorrect. App Engine Flex can run containers, but it is slower to scale from zero compared to Cloud Run and typically involves more configuration overhead for containerized workloads.
Option E: Cloud Functions – Incorrect. Cloud Functions are meant for single-purpose, event-driven functions (code snippets), not for hosting entire Docker containerized web applications.
Option F: Bare Metal Solution – Incorrect. Bare Metal is used for lift-and-shift of specialized workloads (like Oracle databases) that cannot run in virtualized environments. It offers zero automatic scaling.

Question 2: You are setting up a new Google Cloud project for your team. A new compliance auditor needs to review the setup. They must be able to see all resources and configurations across the entire project, but they must be strictly blocked from creating, modifying, or deleting any resources. Which IAM role provides the most appropriate level of access?

Correct Answer: B
Overall Explanation: Following the principle of least privilege, an auditor who only needs to look at resources without making changes should be granted a primitive role restricted entirely to read-only actions at the project level.
Option A: roles/editor – Incorrect. The Editor role allows a user to view, create, modify, and delete resources. This violates the requirement to block modifications.
Option B: roles/viewer – Correct. The Viewer role is a basic role that provides read-only access to almost all resources in a project, perfectly fitting the auditor's requirement.
Option C: roles/browser – Incorrect. The Browser role only provides read access to the project hierarchy (like project name and ID). It does not allow the user to view the actual resources inside the project.
Option D: roles/owner – Incorrect. The Owner role grants full administrative access, including the ability to delete the project and modify IAM permissions. This is highly insecure for an auditor.
Option E: roles/iam.securityReviewer – Incorrect. This role allows a user to view IAM policies and organization policies, but it does not grant view access to the actual computing or data resources in the project.
Option F: Custom role with specific write permissions – Incorrect. The scenario strictly forbids modifying resources, making any role with write permissions invalid.

Question 3: Your organization generates daily video logs. These files are accessed frequently during the first 30 days for analysis. After 30 days, they are rarely accessed but must be retained for 5 years for legal compliance. You want to implement a solution that minimizes storage costs automatically. How should you configure this?

Correct Answer: B
Overall Explanation: The data has a clear lifecycle: "hot" (frequent access) for 30 days, then "cold" (rare access) for years. Cloud Storage is ideal for unstructured video files, and Object Lifecycle Management automates the cost-saving transition between storage classes.
Option A: Cloud SQL with automatic backups – Incorrect. Cloud SQL is a relational database meant for structured data. It is highly inefficient and expensive for storing large, unstructured video files.
Option B: Cloud Storage Standard class with Object Lifecycle Management to transition to Archive after 30 days – Correct. Standard storage is cost-effective for frequent access. Transitioning objects automatically to the Archive class after 30 days provides the lowest possible long-term storage cost for the 5-year retention period.
Option C: Persistent Disk attached to Compute Engine – Incorrect. Persistent disks are block storage meant for VM filesystems. They are expensive, do not automatically transition storage classes, and are not designed for long-term archival of files.
Option D: Cloud Storage Nearline class with Object Lifecycle Management to transition to Standard after 30 days – Incorrect. This is the reverse of what is needed. Nearline is for infrequent access, and transitioning it to Standard after 30 days would increase costs.
Option E: Filestore with snapshot policies – Incorrect. Filestore provides managed NFS for high-performance workloads. It is significantly more expensive than Cloud Storage and lacks automated archiving tiers for compliance data.
Option F: Bigtable with TTL (Time to Live) rules – Incorrect. Bigtable is a NoSQL wide-column database for high-throughput, low-latency workloads. It is not designed for storing large video blobs, and a TTL rule would delete the data, violating the 5-year retention requirement.

Welcome to the Mock Exam Practice Tests Academy to help you prepare for your Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Course.
You can retake the exams as many times as you want
This is a huge original question bank
You get support from instructors if you have questions
Each question has a detailed explanation
Mobile-compatible with the Udemy app

I hope that by now you're convinced! And there are a lot more questions inside the course.