Why do transactional relational databases normalize data into multiple related tables?
A.To reduce redundancy and prevent update anomalies
Dedup + integrity = normalization's purpose. Correct.
B.To speed up large analytical scans
Analytic systems denormalize for speed — opposite direction.
C.To store unstructured data
Normalization is a relational-structuring concept.
D.To eliminate the need for keys
Normalization relies ON keys — it doesn't remove them.
Why this answer
Normalization removes duplicated data — each fact lives once — preventing update/insert/delete anomalies. Analytics systems often DENORMALIZE (star schemas) because fewer joins speed up reads.
Correct answer: A · Last reviewed 2026-11-05
Official AWS references
Practice this interactively
Answer without seeing the solution first in the Core Data Concepts practice session.
Practice Core Data Concepts