Explanation
Spark provides a way to digest JSON-formatted strings as schema. However, it is not trivial to use. Although slightly above exam difficulty, this question is beneficial to your exam preparation, since it helps you to familiarize yourself with the concept of enforcing schemas on data you are reading in - a topic within the scope of the exam.
The first answer that jumps out here is the one that uses spark.read.schema instead of spark.read.json. Looking at the documentation of spark.read.schema (linked below), we notice that the operator expects types pyspark.sql.types.StructType or str as its first argument. While variable json_schema is a string, the documentation states that the str should be "a DDL-formatted string (For example col0 INT, col1 DOUBLE)". Variable json_schema does not contain a string in this type of format, so this answer option must be wrong.
With four potentially correct answers to go, we now look at the schema parameter of spark.read.json() (documentation linked below). Here, too, the schema parameter expects an input of type pyspark.sql.types.StructType or "a DDL-formatted string (For example col0 INT, col1 DOUBLE)". We already know that json_schema does not follow this format, so we should focus on how we can transform json_schema into pyspark.sql.types.StructType. Hereby, we also eliminate the option where schema=json_schema.
The option that includes schema=spark.read.json(json_schema) is also a wrong pick, since spark.read.json returns a DataFrame, and not a pyspark.sql.types.StructType type.
Ruling out the option which includes schema_of_json(json_schema) is rather difficult. The operator's documentation (linked below) states that it "[p]arses a JSON string and infers its schema in DDL format". This use case is slightly different from the case at hand: json_schema already is a schema definition, it does not make sense to "infer" a schema from it. In the documentation you can see an example use case which helps you understand the difference better. Here, you pass string '{a: 1}' to schema_of_json() and the method infers a DDL-format schema STRUCT<a: BIGINT> from it.
In our case, we may end up with the output schema of schema_of_json() describing the schema of the JSON schema, instead of using the schema itself. This is not the right answer option.
Now you may consider looking at the StructType.fromJson() method. It returns a variable of type StructType - exactly the type which the schema parameter of spark.read.json expects.
Although we could have looked at the correct answer option earlier, this explanation is kept as exhaustive as necessary to teach you how to systematically eliminate wrong answer options.
More info:
- pyspark.sql.DataFrameReader.schema - PySpark 3.1.2 documentation
- pyspark.sql.DataFrameReader.json - PySpark 3.1.2 documentation
- pyspark.sql.functions.schema_of_json - PySpark 3.1.2 documentation
Static notebook | Dynamic notebook: See test 3

Explanation
Correct code block:
transactionsDf.write.format("parquet").mode("overwrite").option("compression", "snappy").save(storeDir) Solving this question requires you to know how to access the DataFrameWriter (link below) from the DataFrame API - through DataFrame.write.
Another nuance here is about knowing the different modes available for writing parquet files that determine Spark's behavior when dealing with existing files. These, together with the compression options are explained in the DataFrameWriter.parquet documentation linked below.
Finally, bracket __5__ poses a certain challenge. You need to know which command you can use to pass down the file path to the DataFrameWriter. Both save and parquet are valid options here.
More info:
- DataFrame.write: pyspark.sql.DataFrame.write - PySpark 3.1.1 documentation
- DataFrameWriter.parquet: pyspark.sql.DataFrameWriter.parquet - PySpark 3.1.1 documentation Static notebook | Dynamic notebook: See test 1

Explanation
In this question it is important to realize that you are asked to sort transactionDf by two columns. This means that the sorting of the second column depends on the sorting of the first column.
So, any option that sorts the entire DataFrame (through chaining sort statements) will not work. The two columns need to be channeled through the same call to sort().
Also, order_by is not a valid DataFrame API method.
More info: pyspark.sql.DataFrame.sort - PySpark 3.1.2 documentation
Static notebook | Dynamic notebook: See test 2

Explanation
Correct code block:
spark.conf.set("spark.sql.shuffle.partitions", 20)
The code block expresses the option incorrectly.
Correct! The option should be expressed as a string.
The code block sets the wrong option.
No, spark.sql.shuffle.partitions is the correct option for the use case in the question.
The code block sets the incorrect number of parts.
Wrong, the code block correctly states 20 parts.
The code block uses the wrong command for setting an option.
No, in PySpark spark.conf.set() is the correct command for setting an option.
The code block is missing a parameter.
Incorrect, spark.conf.set() takes two parameters.
More info: Configuration - Spark 3.1.2 Documentation

Explanation
Correct code block:
spark.createDataFrame([("red",), ("blue",), ("green",)], ["color"])
The createDataFrame syntax is not exactly straightforward, but luckily the documentation (linked below) provides several examples on how to use it. It also shows an example very similar to the code block presented here which should help you answer this question correctly.
More info: pyspark.sql.SparkSession.createDataFrame - PySpark 3.1.2 documentation Static notebook | Dynamic notebook: See test 2