Day 9: The scenario says the VM and NIC already exist, but they do not.
However after I created a VM (taking care to override OS disk type to Stanrdard HDD otherwise VM fails to create due to policy in place), and a network interface as named in the description, stopped the VM, attached the NIC, started the VM, the solution was accepted.
100 Days of Cloud (Azure)
Day 9: Attach Network Interface Card (NIC) to Azure Virtual Machine