220-1201 Practice Test 37 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A technician is tasked with upgrading the RAM in a desktop motherboard that has four DIMM slots. The existing configuration has two 4GB sticks in slots A1 and B1. The user wants to add two more 4GB sticks for a total of 16GB. After installing the new sticks in slots A2 and B2, the system boots but only shows 8GB of RAM. What is the most likely cause?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

The new RAM is incompatible with the existing RAM. When mixing RAM modules, even if they are the same size, they may not be compatible if they have different timings, speeds, or ranks. The motherboard may default to the lowest common denominator or fail to recognize mismatched modules. This is a common issue when not using matched kits.

Answer

The new RAM is not seated properly

Answer

The motherboard does not support four sticks of RAM

Answer

The BIOS needs an update to support higher capacity

Question 2

A technician is installing a new M.2 NVMe SSD in a desktop computer. After installation, the drive is not listed in the operating system's disk management tool, but it appears in the UEFI firmware interface. What should the technician do first?

Accepted Answer

Initialize the disk in Disk Management and create a volume.. When a drive is recognized in UEFI but not in the OS, it often means the drive is not initialized or formatted. Disk Management can initialize the drive and assign a file system, making it usable by the OS.

Answer

Update the UEFI firmware to the latest version.

Answer

Change the SATA mode from AHCI to IDE in UEFI.

Answer

Reseat the M.2 drive in the slot.

Question 3

During a desktop build, you install a new M.2 NVMe SSD into the M.2 slot. When you power on the system, the BIOS does not detect the drive. The SSD is known to be working. What is the most likely motherboard-related cause?

Accepted Answer

The M.2 slot is SATA-only and the drive is NVMe. The most likely motherboard-related cause is that the M.2 slot is SATA-only while the installed drive is NVMe, because SATA M.2 slots use the SATA controller and cannot communicate with NVMe drives that use PCIe lanes. The drive is known-good, so the incompatibility is between the slot's supported protocol and the drive's interface. This is a common desktop build mistake.

Answer

The CMOS battery needs replacement

Answer

The motherboard BIOS is corrupted

Answer

The CPU is not seated properly

Question 4

During a network upgrade, a technician needs to ensure that all devices on a small office LAN receive IP addresses automatically from a central server. Which protocol must be running on that server?

Accepted Answer

DHCP. The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is the correct answer because it is specifically designed to automatically assign IP addresses, subnet masks, default gateways, and other network configuration parameters to devices on a LAN. A DHCP server listens on UDP port 67 and responds to client requests on UDP port 68, enabling zero-touch IP configuration for all devices on the network.

Answer

DNS

Answer

HTTP

Answer

FTP

Question 5

A user reports that their NFC-enabled smartphone cannot make contactless payments at a terminal that works with other phones. The user has a thick wallet case with metal credit cards. What is the most likely issue?

Accepted Answer

The wallet case is interfering with the NFC signal.. The thick wallet case with metal credit cards is the most likely cause because metal can block or attenuate the NFC (Near Field Communication) signal, which operates at 13.56 MHz. The case creates a physical barrier that prevents the phone's NFC antenna from establishing the short-range inductive coupling needed for contactless payments, even though the terminal and phone hardware are functional.

Answer

The payment terminal's NFC reader is faulty.

Answer

The phone's NFC antenna is damaged.

Answer

The phone's payment app is not configured correctly.

Question 6

A customer brings in a smartphone with a broken charging port. They want the port replaced. During disassembly, the technician finds that the charging port is soldered directly to the main board. Which tool is essential for this repair?

Accepted Answer

A soldering iron with a fine tip.. The charging port is soldered directly to the main board, requiring a soldering iron with a fine tip to precisely heat and remove the existing solder joints and then re-solder the new port without damaging nearby components. A fine tip allows controlled heat application on small surface-mount pads, which is essential for this type of micro-soldering repair.

Answer

A heat gun with a narrow nozzle.

Answer

A Phillips-head screwdriver.

Answer

A plastic spudger.

Question 7

A customer reports that their laptop frequently disconnects from the Wi-Fi in their home office, but works fine in other rooms. The office is located in a detached garage, and the wireless router is in the main house. Which wireless networking technology would best solve this issue without running cables?

Accepted Answer

Wireless mesh network. A wireless mesh network is the best solution because it extends Wi-Fi coverage to the detached garage without running cables. Mesh nodes communicate wirelessly with each other, creating a seamless network that overcomes the range and obstruction issues caused by the distance and building materials between the main house and garage.

Answer

5 GHz frequency band

Answer

Powerline networking adapters

Answer

802.11ac standard

Question 8

A technician is asked to run a new network cable from a patch panel to a cubicle 80 meters away. The cable must support at least 1 Gbps. The technician has Cat6 cable on hand. What is the maximum distance this cable will support for 1 Gbps?

Accepted Answer

100 meters. Cat6 cable is rated to support 1 Gbps Ethernet (1000BASE-T) up to a maximum distance of 100 meters per the TIA/EIA-568 standard. Since the required distance is 80 meters, which is within this limit, the cable will support 1 Gbps. The 100-meter limit includes the combined length of the horizontal cable from the patch panel to the cubicle, plus any patch cords at both ends.

Answer

55 meters

Answer

150 meters

Answer

200 meters

Question 9

A company deploys tablets for field workers to capture signatures on glass screens using a capacitive stylus. Several workers complain that the stylus does not register consistently. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The stylus tip is not conductive.. Capacitive styluses work by transferring a small electrical charge from the user's hand through the conductive tip to the touchscreen, mimicking a finger's touch. If the tip is not conductive, it cannot complete the capacitive coupling, causing inconsistent or no registration. This is the most likely cause given the specific use case of signature capture on glass screens.

Answer

The screen protector is too thick.

Answer

The tablet's touch calibration is off.

Answer

The workers are pressing too lightly.

Question 10

A small office has a single router with four LAN ports. The network uses 192.168.1.0/24. A new printer is assigned a static IP of 192.168.1.256. What will happen when the printer is connected?

Accepted Answer

The printer will not be able to communicate on the network. 192.168.1.256 is an invalid IPv4 address. In IPv4, each octet is an 8-bit number ranging from 0 to 255. The value 256 exceeds this limit, so the address is malformed. The printer will not be able to communicate on the network because its configured IP is outside the valid address space and cannot be used for any network communication.

Answer

The printer will work but only with devices that have a static IP

Answer

The printer will automatically obtain a valid IP via DHCP

Answer

The printer will cause an IP address conflict with the router

Question 11

A technician is tasked with enabling hardware-level virtualization on a desktop to run a virtual machine. Which UEFI setting must be enabled?

Accepted Answer

Enable Intel VT-x or AMD-V. Hardware-level virtualization on Intel and AMD processors requires enabling Intel VT-x or AMD-V in UEFI/BIOS, which exposes the CPU virtualization extensions needed by hypervisors like Hyper-V, VMware, or VirtualBox. Without this setting, the hypervisor cannot create hardware-accelerated VMs.

Answer

Enable Secure Boot

Answer

Enable Execute Disable Bit (XD/NX)

Answer

Set SATA mode to AHCI

Question 12

A user reports that their new SSD is not recognized by the system. The drive is properly connected and powered. Which UEFI setting should be checked to ensure the drive is detected?

Accepted Answer

Set SATA mode to AHCI or RAID as appropriate. If an SSD is properly connected and powered but not detected, the most likely UEFI-level cause is that the SATA controller mode is set to a value incompatible with the drive's configuration, such as IDE when the drive was initialized under AHCI, or RAID when no array is configured. Setting the SATA mode to AHCI (or RAID if the drive is part of an array) allows the UEFI and OS to enumerate the drive correctly. This is the setting that directly controls storage controller detection.

Answer

Enable Secure Boot

Answer

Disable the TPM chip

Answer

Change boot order to list the SSD first

Question 13

A user reports that their laser printer occasionally prints pages with a faint ghost image of the previous page. The ghost image appears about 2 inches below the current content. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The drum cleaning blade is worn. A ghost image repeating at a fixed interval (about 2 inches) is typically caused by the drum cleaning blade failing to remove residual toner from the previous rotation. The drum retains a latent image that gets transferred to the next page, creating a ghost. A worn cleaning blade is the most likely cause.

Answer

The toner cartridge is low

Answer

The fuser is overheating

Answer

The paper is damp

Question 14

A user has a laptop that supports USB-C Power Delivery and wants to charge it using a portable power bank while on a flight. The power bank has a USB-A output. Which additional accessory is required?

Accepted Answer

A power bank that supports USB-C Power Delivery output.. The laptop requires USB-C Power Delivery (PD) to negotiate a charging voltage higher than the standard 5V. A power bank with only a USB-A output cannot provide the PD protocol negotiation over USB-A, as PD is a feature of the USB-C connector and its configuration channel (CC) lines. Therefore, a power bank that explicitly supports USB-C PD output is necessary to deliver the higher wattage (e.g., 20V/3A) that the laptop expects for charging.

Answer

A USB-A to USB-C cable.

Answer

A USB-C to USB-C cable.

Answer

A USB-C to HDMI adapter.

Question 15

A technician is deploying 20 new tablets for a hospital's nursing staff. After configuring Wi-Fi and email, they find that the tablets will not connect to the corporate 5 GHz wireless network, only to the 2.4 GHz network. All tablets are the same model. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The tablets only support 802.11b/g/n on the 2.4 GHz band and lack 5 GHz hardware support.. The tablets connect fine to 2.4 GHz but never see or associate with the 5 GHz SSID, which points to a hardware/radio capability limitation rather than a configuration issue. Tablets that only implement 802.11b/g/n are 2.4 GHz-only devices, since 5 GHz operation requires 802.11a/n/ac/ax radios. Because all 20 identical tablets exhibit the same behavior, a per-device defect or per-device config error is unlikely.

Answer

The 5 GHz SSID is hidden and requires manual entry.

Answer

The corporate 5 GHz network requires 802.1X authentication that is not configured on the tablets.

Answer

The tablets have a defective Wi-Fi antenna.