The 20% of topics that drive 80% of marks on DP-800 are the ones that sit at the intersection of multiple exam domains. These are your highest-leverage areas — master these first.
🗄️ Design & Develop
35–40% of exam
★★★ Vector data type + JSON columns
★★★ CTEs + Window functions
★★★ Stored procedures + triggers
★★ Partitioning + columnstore indexes
★★ Graph queries + MATCH operator
★★ Temporal & in-memory tables
★ Sequences, constraints, TVFs
🔒 Secure, Optimize & Deploy
35–40% of exam
★★★ Row-Level Security (RLS)
★★★ Dynamic Data Masking
★★★ SQL Database Projects + CI/CD
★★★ Data API Builder (DAB)
★★ Query Store + execution plans
★★ Transaction isolation levels
★ Always Encrypted, auditing
🤖 AI Capabilities
25–30% of exam
★★★ Vector search (ANN vs ENN)
★★★ Hybrid search + RRF
★★★ RAG with sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint
★★ Embedding generation + maintenance
★★ External models + VECTOR_DISTANCE
★★ Full-text vs semantic vs hybrid
★ Multimodal models, chunking strategy
🏆 The 20% High-Yield Topics — Memorise These Cold
Cross-Domain Power Topics
VECTOR data type & VECTOR_DISTANCE()
Appears in Design, AI, and Security domains
Data API Builder (DAB) config files
REST + GraphQL + security in one topic
SQL Database Projects (SDK-style)
CI/CD, schema drift, branching policies
sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint
Core RAG primitive — used in 3+ question types
Scenario Speed-Read Patterns
"Query is slow on large table"
→ Columnstore index or partitioning
"User sees others' data"
→ Row-Level Security (RLS)
"Find semantically similar docs"
→ Hybrid search + RRF ranking
"Real-time AI answer from DB"
→ RAG + sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint
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