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Snowflake · SF-ADM · Advanced

SnowPro Advanced: Administrator (ADA-C02) — Practice Questions and Mock Exam

The SnowPro Advanced: Administrator Certification (ADA-C02) validates expertise in Snowflake account administration, including managing and monitoring accounts, enforcing data security and compliance, handling database objects and virtual warehouses, performance tuning, data sharing via Marketplace and Exchange, and implementing disaster recovery and replication strategies.

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Official SF-ADM exam: 750 out of 1000 points to pass.

Checked against Snowflake · September 2026 · Current exam version

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Snowflake Security, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), and User Administration1 / 5

Which system role is dedicated to creating and managing custom account roles under Snowflake role-management best practices?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

Snowflake separates administration duties: USERADMIN creates and manages users and roles it owns; SECURITYADMIN manages grants through MANAGE GRANTS; SYSADMIN owns and manages warehouses, databases, and database objects. For custom roles, Snowflake recommends building a role hierarchy aligned to business functions and assigning the top custom role to SYSADMIN so system administrators can manage objects owned by those roles, while user and role administration remains with USERADMIN.

Sourcedocs.snowflake.com

Data and Object Management2 / 5

Which table function does a task owner query to retrieve the credit usage of a specific serverless task?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

Serverless task compute is not attributed to any warehouse, so warehouse metering views simply do not see it — a common reason administrators conclude a task is free. SERVERLESS_TASK_HISTORY is the dedicated accounting surface, with credits_used per run. TASK_HISTORY, by contrast, reports execution state and scheduling rather than credit consumption, so it answers 'did it run' but not 'what did it cost'.

Sourcedocs.snowflake.com

Data Sharing and Snowflake Marketplace3 / 5

What is a direct share in Snowflake?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

A direct share is a named Snowflake object that allows a data provider to grant read-only access to specific database objects (tables, secure views, UDFs) to designated consumer accounts in the same region. No data is copied—consumers query data in place, paying only for compute. A file transfer mechanism is incorrect; shares use Snowflake's metadata layer, not file transfers. A cross-cloud replication tool describes replication groups, not shares. A data marketplace listing describes Snowflake Marketplace listings, which are distinct from direct account-to-account shares. Ref: docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-sharing-intro.

Sourcedocs.snowflake.com

Account Management & Data Governance4 / 5

At which levels can a resource monitor be set?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

Resource monitors in Snowflake track credit usage and can be set at two levels: account level (monitoring all warehouses, one per account) and individual warehouse level (monitoring specific warehouses). Trigger actions include NOTIFY (alert only), SUSPEND (finish queries then suspend), and SUSPEND_IMMEDIATE (cancel and suspend). Database/schema level is incorrect—resource monitors do not apply to storage objects. User/role level and stage/table level are not valid monitor levels. Only ACCOUNTADMIN can create resource monitors by default. Ref: docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/resource-monitors, docs.snowflake.com/en/sql-reference/sql/create-resource-monitor.

Sourcedocs.snowflake.com

Performance Monitoring & Tuning5 / 5

Which parameter controls query result caching?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

USE_CACHED_RESULT (default TRUE) controls whether Snowflake returns cached results for repeated identical queries. When enabled, if the same query is re-executed within 24 hours and underlying data hasn't changed, Snowflake returns the persisted result without consuming warehouse compute. A (ENABLE_RESULT_CACHE) is not a valid Snowflake parameter. C (RESULT_CACHE_ENABLED) is similarly fabricated. D (CACHE_QUERY_RESULTS) does not exist. The parameter can be set at account or session level via ALTER SESSION SET USE_CACHED_RESULT = FALSE. Cache reuse requires exact query text match, unchanged data, and no non-deterministic functions like RANDOM() or UUID_STRING(). Ref: docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/querying-persisted-results

Sourcedocs.snowflake.com

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Role administration

You
Which built-in role is dedicated to managing users and custom account roles?
Alex · AI tutor
USERADMIN.
Read the Snowflake documentation ↗
You
Should I select the most powerful account role just because it can do it?
Alex · AI tutor
The question asks for the dedicated role. USERADMIN matches that responsibility.
Read the Snowflake documentation ↗

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SF-ADM · Question excerpt

Role administration

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Which system role is dedicated to creating and managing custom account roles under Snowflake role-management best practices?

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USERADMIN

USERADMIN is the dedicated system role for user and custom account-role administration.

Read the Snowflake documentation ↗

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Questions: 65
Minutes: 115

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Exam domains

What you practice for SF-ADM.

Exam topics, relevant practice and sources you can check.

Control administrative accessSee the guide for weighting131 QuestionsPass-IT questions

Set up roles, sign-in and network controls for Snowflake administration.

Choose organization and account administrators, then design DAC, RBAC or UBAC with suitable role hierarchies and privilege inheritance.
Create and audit users, database roles and object privileges; manage secondary roles, future grants, managed access schemas, warehouse permissions and access to AI models.
Configure SSO, MFA, password policies, key pairs, programmatic tokens and OAuth, including credential rotation and user recovery.
Apply network rules and private connectivity for Snowflake and internal stages, and secure the SQL API.
Automate users and groups with SCIM, secure service accounts and API integrations, and restrict data exfiltration and AI access.

Official Snowflake objectives

Manage accounts and govern dataSee the guide for weighting77 QuestionsPass-IT questions

Organize accounts and protect sensitive data throughout its use.

Manage organizations, accounts, regions and account settings, including encryption keys, rotation, Tri-Secret Secure and Cortex AI availability.
Apply masking, tokenization and row access policies; use tags, classification, access history, Trust Center, Horizon Catalog and lineage to govern data.
Choose the correct account name or locator and region identifier for a connection or administrative task.

Official Snowflake objectives

Manage compute and database objectsSee the guide for weighting63 QuestionsPass-IT questions

Maintain the objects and compute resources that keep workloads running.

Size warehouses for loading and queries, and configure suspension, resumption, multi-cluster scaling and usage monitoring.
Manage table types, external and Iceberg tables, views, materialized views and clones for the required workload.
Configure storage integrations, external stages, Iceberg external volumes and Polaris Catalog while controlling data exfiltration.
Schedule and troubleshoot tasks, assign execution privileges and choose user-managed or Snowflake-managed compute.
Use sequences and persisted results, inspect or cancel queries, and create, share and recover Snowsight dashboards and visualizations.

Official Snowflake objectives

Monitor performance and costsSee the guide for weighting85 QuestionsPass-IT questions

Use query evidence and usage records to improve efficiency.

Read Query Profiles and explain plans to diagnose joins, spilling, pruning and timeouts; choose caching, materialized views, search optimization or query acceleration.
Manage transactions, DML locking and concurrency so simultaneous changes run predictably.
Set resource monitors and cost dashboards to track consumption against business limits.
Configure event tables and logging, metrics and tracing levels; use alerts and traces to investigate security, health and performance problems.
Calculate and reduce storage, transfer, replication, warehouse, serverless and AI costs using usage views, budgets and warehouse monitoring, accounting for view latency and retention.

Official Snowflake objectives

Share data and manage listingsSee the guide for weighting31 QuestionsPass-IT questions

Provide controlled access to data and applications inside or outside the organization.

Choose secure sharing models across accounts, editions, regions and clouds, including replication and cross-cloud listing fulfillment.
Manage providers, consumers, reader accounts, secure views and UDFs, and configure Data Clean Rooms and collaborators.
Publish and maintain public or internal Marketplace listings, provider profiles and Native Apps, and monitor requests and usage.

Official Snowflake objectives

Plan replication and recoverySee the guide for weighting38 QuestionsPass-IT questions

Prepare for outages and restore data when changes need to be reversed.

Configure database and account replication, schedules and replication or failover groups, considering editions, object support, privileges and dependent features.
Plan backups, failover and failback across accounts, including schema effects and redirecting client connections.
Set Time Travel retention, query historical data and restore dropped objects, while distinguishing edition limits and Fail-safe.

Official Snowflake objectives

Question formats you can practice

Multiple Choice: Select one answer.
Multiple Response: Select multiple applicable answers.

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Source check: The answer, answer options and explanation are checked against official documentation. We call this canonical validation.

Adversarial review: An additional AI reviewer specifically looks for factual errors, ambiguous answers and weaknesses in the explanation.

Learning objectives: We count specific exam topics with clearly linked exercises. Subheadings are not counted separately.

The figures refer to available questions in each SF-ADM exam domain. The additional review count includes matching review logs for the current question version, even if errors were found. It is not an error-free rate.

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Frequently asked questions

Your preparation

How much study time should I plan for SF-ADM?

For planning, Pass-IT estimates roughly 50–120 hours. Relevant experience may put you toward the lower end; starting from scratch may put you toward the higher end. Your needs may fall outside this range. This is not a time requirement from Snowflake or a promise that you will be exam-ready within that time.

Do you need SnowPro Core before the Advanced Administrator exam?

Yes. Snowflake requires SnowPro Core certification for every advanced exam, and this one additionally assumes two or more years of hands-on production administration. The catalog budget is around 80 hours on top of that. This is a real gate rather than a recommendation, unlike most vendors in our catalog.

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What language are Pass-IT questions in?

Questions in the app are currently in English. Translations of the sample questions on this page apply only to this preview. Check with Snowflake for the languages available for the official exam.

How long does my SF-ADM access last?

Access covers this certification for 12 months. You pay once, with no automatic renewal.

When does the money-back guarantee apply?

The guarantee refunds the Pass-IT purchase price for this certification. You need eligible paid access and a Readiness Score of at least 80% from your practice results when you take the exam. This score can only reach 80% after at least 50 answered questions and is not a validated probability of passing. Take the exam during your access period and submit official proof of failing within 14 days. Guarantee terms

About the SF-ADM exam

Where can I take the SF-ADM exam?

Online proctored or onsite testing centers.

How long is the SnowPro Advanced: Administrator (ADA-C02) exam?

The SnowPro Advanced: Administrator (ADA-C02) exam has 65 questions and a 115-minute time limit.

How do you renew the Advanced Administrator certification?

Snowflake certifications expire two years after the issue date, and recertification runs through the continuing-education programme. That means an eligible instructor-led training course, or an equivalent or higher SnowPro certification. You have to hold a valid certification to use the programme at all.

What happens if you fail the Advanced Administrator exam?

If you fail the Advanced Administrator exam, you must wait seven days before trying again. This waiting period applies between all attempts, including before your first retake. You are limited to four attempts at this exam in any 12-month period.

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Money back if you fail with at least 80% Readiness, for eligible purchases under the guarantee terms.

Guarantee terms

The guarantee refunds the Pass-IT purchase price for this certification. You need eligible paid access and a Readiness Score of at least 80% from your practice results when you take the exam. This score can only reach 80% after at least 50 answered questions and is not a validated probability of passing. Take the exam during your access period and submit official proof of failing within 14 days.

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