Study guidePro
Databricks Data Analyst Associate
Every section of the Databricks Data Analyst Associate exam explained, with decision tables, runnable SQL, diagrams and the traps the questions set, following the October 2025 exam guide.
Aligned to the October 2025 exam guide · checked against the Databricks docs on 31 October 2026 · certlake.com/exam/data-analyst-associate/study-guide
Exam at a glance
| Questions | 45 scored multiple-choice (some ask for two answers), plus unscored items |
| Time | 90 minutes |
| Pass mark | Not published by Databricks |
| Language | SQL |
| Exam guide | October 2025 |
| Section | Weight | ≈ Questions |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Databricks Data Intelligence Platform | 11% | 5 |
| 2. Managing Data | 8% | 4 |
| 3. Importing Data | 5% | 2 |
| 4. Executing Queries with Databricks SQL | 20% | 9 |
| 5. Analyzing Queries | 15% | 7 |
| 6. Dashboards and Visualizations | 16% | 7 |
| 7. AI/BI Genie Spaces | 12% | 5 |
| 8. Data Modeling with Databricks SQL | 5% | 2 |
| 9. Securing Data | 8% | 4 |
The weights are the ones Databricks publishes on the certification page; the exam guide PDF lists the same nine sections without percentages. This guide follows the guide's order.
1. Databricks Data Intelligence Platform11% of the exam
The components
| Component | Role |
|---|---|
| Delta Lake | Table format: ACID, time travel, schema enforcement |
| Unity Catalog | Governance: namespace, grants, lineage, tags |
| Databricks SQL | Warehouses, SQL editor, dashboards, alerts |
| Data Intelligence Engine | The guide's name for the AI behind Genie, Genie Code, AI-generated comments and intelligent search |
| Lakeflow pipelines | Batch and streaming pipelines (the guide says Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines (Delta Live Tables)) |
| Lakeflow Jobs | Orchestration |
| Mosaic AI | The guide's name for model serving, agents, vector search |
The exam asks which component does what: Delta Lake stores, Unity Catalog governs, Databricks SQL queries and visualises, Lakeflow moves and schedules, Mosaic AI serves models.
Catalog Explorer
Catalog Explorer is the UI onto Unity Catalog: browse catalogs, schemas, tables, views, volumes and functions; see a table's columns, sample data, permissions and owner; and open its Lineage tab.
| Managed | External | |
|---|---|---|
| Data | Unity Catalog's storage | Your path (LOCATION) |
DROP TABLE | Deleted; UNDROP for 7 days by default | Metadata only; files stay |
- Certified and deprecated are values of the system tag
system., shown as a badge so analysts know which copy of a dataset to trust.certification_ status - Lineage is captured automatically to column level: upstream and downstream tables, columns, notebooks, jobs and dashboards.
Marketplace
Databricks Marketplace offers third-party datasets, models and notebooks. Data products arrive over OpenSharing (formerly Delta Sharing): no copy, read-only, mounted as a shared catalog you query like any other.
The rest of this guide is part of Pro
8 more domains, explained with snippets, decision tables and diagrams:
- 2. Managing Data · 8%
- 3. Importing Data · 5%
- 4. Executing Queries with Databricks SQL · 20%
- 5. Analyzing Queries · 15%
- 6. Dashboards and Visualizations · 16%
- 7. AI/BI Genie Spaces · 12%
- 8. Data Modeling with Databricks SQL · 5%
- 9. Securing Data · 8%
Know it, or just recognise it?
The free diagnostic shows which domains you'd lose marks on, in about 10 minutes and without signing up.
Take the free diagnosticCheat sheet
The two-page cheat sheet: rules, defaults and traps for the last week before the exam.
Open the cheat sheetSpotted something out of date? Email support@certlake.com. CertLake is not affiliated with Databricks, Inc.