Module 16 · Normalization · Drill

Normalization drill

Scenario prompts that check whether normalization is usable under pressure. Answer out loud, then compare.

4 prompts25 minNew

0 of 4 graded

Prompt 1
Normalize this table to 3NF, naming each anomaly it suffers and each dependency you remove: OrderLine(order_id, order_date, customer_id, customer_name, customer_city, product_id, product_name, unit_price, quantity). One order has many products; price is the product's list price.
Say your answer out loud first. Thirty seconds is enough.
Prompt 2
R(A, B, C, D, E) with F = {A → B, BC → E, ED → A}. Find all candidate keys, list prime attributes, and determine the highest normal form R satisfies. Then decompose into BCNF and say whether dependencies are preserved.
Say your answer out loud first. Thirty seconds is enough.
Prompt 3
Employee(emp_id, project, skill) records which projects each employee works on and which skills they have; projects and skills are unrelated. The table has thousands of rows per senior engineer. Identify the problem formally, fix it, and explain why BCNF did not catch it.
Say your answer out loud first. Thirty seconds is enough.
Prompt 4
An analytics team argues that normalization is outdated because joins are slow, and wants one wide table for the orders service. Give a balanced engineering answer: when the normalized design must stay the source of truth, when denormalized copies are appropriate, and how to keep them correct.
Say your answer out loud first. Thirty seconds is enough.