Free AZ-900 diagnostic quiz: find your weak spots

Ten questions across all three domains — a sample of the full 50-question diagnostic in the course. See where the gaps are, AZ-900, 2026 edition.

Take these 10 free diagnostic questions in the exam's own style — every answer explained, no sign-up — and find the domain to study first.

Straight to the 10 free questions ↓

The fastest way to waste a study week is to revise what you already know. A short diagnostic across all three domains fixes that: it shows you where the gaps actually are, so your time goes where it counts. These ten questions are a free sample of that diagnostic, drawn from every part of the exam — no sign-up, and every answer explained.

How to read your result

Do not just count how many you got right — notice where you got them wrong. The AZ-900 has no per-domain pass mark, so a total of 700 out of 1000 is all you need; but the cheapest way to reach it is to lift your weakest domain, not to perfect a strong one. The bar in the diagram shows why: the three domains are not equal in weight, so a gap in a big one costs more marks than a gap in a small one.

The three domains, and where they bite

Cloud Concepts (25–30%) — definitions and benefits: high availability, scalability, the shared responsibility line, SLAs. Punishing when your definitions are approximate rather than exact.
Azure Architecture & Services (35–40%) — the biggest domain and the longest list of service names to keep apart: compute, storage, networking, databases. This is where most people lose the most marks, simply because there is the most to know.
Azure Management & Governance (30–35%) — identity, cost tools, policy, tags, and the management interfaces. Factual and learnable, but easy to blur one governance tool into another.

The signal that matters more than the score

It is possible to score well by recognising questions you have seen before and learn nothing you can carry into the real exam — which will show you questions built the same way, about things you have not seen. The skill that transfers is being able to rule the wrong options out for a reason. That is why every explanation here spends more words on the three wrong answers than on the right one. If you can say why each distractor fails, you can answer a question you have never met.

The exam’s own formats

The real AZ-900 mixes formats — standard multiple-choice, true/false, and drag-and-drop matching — so knowing a term is not enough; you have to place it correctly against others. The samples below are standard multiple-choice, which is where the reasoning skill is easiest to build. Once ruling options out is second nature, the other formats stop feeling different.

How to use the questions below

Answer each one before you reveal the explanation, and when you miss, read past the correct option to why the other three fail. Then look at your pattern of misses and pick the domain to study first. The full 50-question diagnostic and the timed full-length tests — with the analytics that name your weakest domain for you — are in the course; these ten are the free way to find out whether you need them yet.

The three AZ-900 exam domains shown as a single weighted bar — Cloud Concepts at 25 to 30 percent, Azure Architecture and Services at 35 to 40 percent, and Azure Management and Governance at 30 to 35 percent — with an arrow marking the plan: find your weakest domain and drill it first. Ten free sample questions preview the full 50-question diagnostic.

10 free AZ-900 practice questions

Answers and explanations — no email wall

AZ-900 Question 1 of 10

A web app runs behind Azure Load Balancer, whose SLA is 99.99%, and reads from a database whose SLA is 99.9%. If the app depends on both being up, what happens to the combined (composite) SLA?

Answer: A — It drops below either one — roughly 99.89% — because the percentages multiply

When two services must both be available, you multiply their SLAs (0.9999 x 0.999), so the composite is lower than either part. Why not the others: it does not match the stronger service, and it is not a simple average — chaining dependencies always lowers the combined number. And SLAs are explicitly designed to be composed this way. Pro tip: more services in series means a lower combined SLA — a core AZ-900 reliability idea.

AZ-900 Question 2 of 10

Your team spins up a service that is still in public preview to test a new feature. A stakeholder asks what uptime guarantee Microsoft is committing to. What is the correct answer?

Answer: A — Preview services generally carry no financially backed SLA until they reach general availability

Services in preview are for evaluation and typically have no financially backed SLA; the guarantee arrives at general availability. Why not the others: uptime commitments vary by service and tier rather than being one universal figure, preview does not earn a better guarantee, and customers do not set Microsoft's SLA. Pro tip: 'free tier' and 'preview' are the two classic 'no SLA' signals on the exam.

AZ-900 Question 3 of 10

Leadership keeps using 'high availability' and 'disaster recovery' interchangeably. Which statement correctly separates the two?

Answer: A — High availability keeps a workload running through everyday failures; disaster recovery restores it after a major outage or region loss

High availability minimizes downtime from routine faults (a failed VM, a lost datacenter), while disaster recovery is the plan to recover after something large, such as a whole region going down. Why not the others: they are distinct goals, neither is about identities, and the last option reverses the two roles. Pro tip: HA = stay up now; DR = come back after a disaster.

AZ-900 Question 4 of 10

Requests to your public web tier must be spread evenly across several identical VMs in one region, purely on network traffic, with no content caching. Which Azure service does this?

Answer: A — Azure Load Balancer

Azure Load Balancer distributes incoming network traffic across a pool of backend VMs so no single one is overwhelmed. Why not the others: a Content Delivery Network caches content near users rather than balancing a VM pool, Azure Firewall filters and inspects traffic, and Azure Bastion is for secure remote access to VMs. Pro tip: 'spread traffic across identical instances' points to a load balancer.

AZ-900 Question 5 of 10

Your storage account holds logs that are read often for 30 days, rarely after that, and can be deleted after a year. You want Azure to move and delete them automatically. Which Blob Storage feature fits?

Answer: A — Lifecycle management policies

Lifecycle management policies apply rules that automatically move blobs to cooler tiers and delete them by age, so no one has to touch them. Why not the others: doing it by hand is exactly what the policy replaces, LRS is a redundancy option not a tiering schedule, and a SAS grants scoped access rather than managing tiers. Pro tip: 'automatically by age' means a lifecycle policy, not a manual tier change.

AZ-900 Question 6 of 10

A team wants to deploy a pre-built, publisher-certified virtual appliance and some third-party software into Azure without building the images themselves. Where do they find and launch these listings?

Answer: A — Azure Marketplace

Azure Marketplace is the catalog of certified solutions and apps from Microsoft and partners that you can deploy straight into your subscription. Why not the others: Advisor gives best-practice recommendations, the Pricing Calculator only estimates cost, and Monitor collects metrics and logs — none of them is a catalog you deploy from. Pro tip: 'find and deploy partner or third-party solutions' is the Marketplace.

AZ-900 Question 7 of 10

A globally used app needs a managed NoSQL database that replicates data across multiple regions with low-latency reads worldwide. Which Azure service is purpose-built for this?

Answer: A — Azure Cosmos DB

Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model NoSQL database designed for turnkey multi-region replication and low-latency access. Why not the others: Azure SQL Database is a managed relational engine, Blob Storage is for unstructured objects rather than a query database, and Cache for Redis is an in-memory cache, not a primary global datastore. Pro tip: 'globally distributed NoSQL' is the Cosmos DB signal.

AZ-900 Question 8 of 10

Finance asks you to report Azure spend by department across dozens of resources. You want to attach 'Department: Sales' style metadata so cost reports can group by it. Which Azure feature is designed for this?

Answer: A — Resource tags

Tags are name-value labels you attach to resources so tools like Cost Management can group and filter spend by things like department or environment. Why not the others: a resource lock prevents accidental change or deletion, management groups organize subscriptions for governance, and availability zones are about physical resilience — none of them is metadata for cost reporting. Pro tip: 'label for organizing and cost reporting' means tags.

AZ-900 Question 9 of 10

You are handed a deployment file that declares the resources to create in a declarative, machine-readable format for Azure Resource Manager. What format is a native ARM template written in?

Answer: A — JSON

A native ARM template is a JSON file that declaratively describes the resources Azure Resource Manager should provision. Why not the others: templates are human-readable text, not compiled binaries, and neither a CSV nor a prose document is a valid deployment format. Pro tip: ARM template equals JSON — a favorite AZ-900 fact; Bicep is a friendlier language that transpiles down to that same JSON.

AZ-900 Question 10 of 10

A company runs Windows Server Active Directory on-premises and wants those same user accounts to sign in to Microsoft 365 and Azure without recreating every user. Which tool synchronizes on-premises identities into Microsoft Entra ID?

Answer: A — Microsoft Entra Connect (Azure AD Connect)

Microsoft Entra Connect (formerly Azure AD Connect) synchronizes on-premises directory accounts into Microsoft Entra ID, enabling one hybrid identity for cloud apps. Why not the others: a load balancer distributes traffic, Azure Policy enforces resource rules, and Network Security Groups filter network traffic — none of them syncs identities. Pro tip: 'sync on-premises AD to the cloud' is Entra Connect, the backbone of hybrid identity.

That is exactly how every question in the course works — answer, explanation, why-not. The real set continues in the practice player: 10 free questions, no sign-up.

Continue with the 10 free questions →

Those 10 questions were the start.

The exam does not test whether you recognise a term — it tests whether you can rule out three plausible answers under time pressure. That is what the explanations above are for, and there are 300 more questions built exactly like them.

Collecting questions yourself

Scattered across forums, of unknown age
Answer keys without reasoning
No idea which domain you are weak in

Practising with a system

300 questions in 6 full tests, AZ-900 (2026)
Every option explained — including the wrong ones
Readiness per exam domain, and drills for your weakest

Start free — 10 questions

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Frequently asked questions

How many questions is the real diagnostic?

The full diagnostic in the course is 50 questions spread across all three domains, with analytics that name your weakest area. The ten here are a free sample of it, enough to show you roughly where your gaps are.

Does each domain have its own pass mark?

No. The AZ-900 is scored on a single scale of 700 out of 1000 overall — there is no separate per-domain pass mark. Lifting your weakest domain is simply the cheapest way to reach that total.

Are these real exam questions?

No. They are our own questions, written in the style and difficulty of the exam. Reproducing real exam items breaks the Microsoft certification agreement and teaches you nothing about the question you have not seen yet.

Updated for AZ-900 (July 2026). The sample questions above are our own work in the style of the exam — not real exam items. The exam itself is set and marked by the certification body.