System DesignBeginnerReady

Scalability Foundations Assessment

This assessment verifies the Scalability Foundations module. Passing it contributes up to 9 points in the 27-35 score band.

Questions

Limit

70m

Pass

85%

Score

Question 1scenarioBeginner

18 pts

Bottleneck-first scaling

A course platform becomes slow during assessment submission. Name five possible bottlenecks, one metric to confirm each, and the first scaling or design response you would consider.

Your answer

Question 2scenarioBeginner

16 pts

Load balancing and routing

Design traffic routing for a learning platform with public course pages, authenticated assessment submissions, image assets, and admin routes. Include load balancer/CDN choices and health-check strategy.

Your answer

Question 3code-reviewBeginner

18 pts

Stateless service design review

Review this design: a resume upload API stores uploaded files on container disk, records parse jobs in an in-memory array, and relies on sticky sessions so the same user returns to the same instance. Explain why this fails under horizontal scaling and redesign it.

Your answer

Question 4scenarioBeginner

16 pts

Caching and CDN trade-off judgment

For a product detail page, define caching rules for image, title/description, inventory count, reviews summary, and personalized discount. Include source of truth, freshness, and privacy concerns.

Your answer

Question 5multiple-choiceBeginner

10 pts

Statelessness and load-balanced sessions

A service is horizontally scaled behind a load balancer, but users randomly lose login sessions after deploys. Which explanation and fix is strongest?