What is a potential side effect of using intermediate tables when you have many joins?

• A. It multiplies the timeout period
• B. It reduces data accuracy
• C. It eliminates the need for timeouts
• D. It makes queries slower but unlimited

Answer: (A)

When you have many joins, breaking the query into intermediate tables can help organize work, but a common downside is a longer overall execution time. Materializing each step adds create/read/write overhead and extra processing when you later join against those intermediate results. That increase in total work can push you past the allotted timeout window, so the potential side effect is a higher risk of hitting timeouts. Data accuracy isn’t inherently compromised by using intermediate tables, and timeouts aren’t eliminated or made unlimited—runtime can still be finite and, in complex scenarios, longer.