220-1201 Practice Test 9 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A technician is troubleshooting a user's inability to reach a server at 172.16.50.100. The user's IP is 172.16.50.50 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0. The technician runs a traceroute and sees the first hop is the gateway (172.16.50.1), but the second hop times out. What does this indicate?

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

Accepted Answer

There is a routing problem between the gateway and the server.. The traceroute shows that the first hop (the gateway at 172.16.50.1) responds, but the second hop times out. This indicates that the packet successfully leaves the user's subnet and reaches the gateway, but fails to be routed further towards the server. This points to a routing issue beyond the local gateway, such as a missing route on the gateway or an intermediate router dropping the packets.

Answer

The user's IP address is in the wrong subnet.

Answer

The server is powered off.

Answer

The user's default gateway is incorrect.

Question 2

A user reports that their PC randomly restarts during boot-up, sometimes before the Windows logo appears. They have already tried reseating the RAM. Which component should be tested next?

Accepted Answer

Test the power supply unit. Random restarts during boot, especially before the Windows logo appears, strongly suggest a power delivery problem. The power supply unit (PSU) is the next logical component to test because insufficient or unstable voltage under load causes spontaneous shutdowns and reboots that occur before the OS even loads.

Answer

Replace the motherboard

Answer

Reinstall the operating system

Answer

Check for BIOS updates

Question 3

An IT manager is comparing cable broadband and fiber-optic for a new office. They need the lowest possible latency for real-time financial trading applications. Which connection type should they choose, and why?

Accepted Answer

Fiber-optic, because it provides lower latency due to the speed of light in glass and dedicated bandwidth. Fiber-optic connections transmit data as light pulses through glass, which travels at approximately 2/3 the speed of light in a vacuum, significantly faster than electrical signals in copper. Additionally, fiber provides dedicated bandwidth per user, eliminating the contention and latency spikes common in cable broadband's shared coaxial architecture. This combination of propagation speed and consistent low latency makes fiber the optimal choice for real-time financial trading where microseconds matter.

Answer

Cable broadband, because it uses coaxial cable which is faster than fiber

Answer

Fiber-optic, because it uses light signals and is not subject to electromagnetic interference

Answer

Cable broadband, because it has higher download speeds

Question 4

A user reports intermittent network drops. You suspect the issue might be with the network interface card (NIC) itself. You need to test the NIC's ability to send and receive data without connecting it to the network. Which tool should you use?

Accepted Answer

Loopback plug. A loopback plug (or loopback adapter) is the correct tool because it connects the transmit (TX) and receive (RX) pins of the NIC, allowing it to send data to itself. This tests the NIC's ability to transmit and receive frames without requiring a network connection, isolating the NIC as the potential fault point.

Answer

Cable tester

Answer

Toner probe

Answer

Multimeter

Question 5

A technician is configuring a new all-in-one PC for a graphic designer. The designer needs to calibrate the display for accurate color reproduction. Which technology should the technician ensure the monitor supports?

Accepted Answer

IPS panel with high color gamut. An IPS (In-Plane Switching) panel with a high color gamut (e.g., sRGB, Adobe RGB, or DCI-P3 coverage) is essential for accurate color reproduction. IPS technology provides consistent color and brightness across wide viewing angles, which is critical for graphic design work where color fidelity is paramount. High color gamut ensures the display can reproduce a broader range of colors, meeting professional calibration standards.

Answer

TN panel with 144Hz refresh rate

Answer

VA panel with high contrast ratio

Answer

OLED panel with burn-in protection

Question 6

A technician is upgrading a server CPU to improve multi-threaded performance for a virtualization host. The current CPU has 8 cores and 16 threads. Which of the following specifications is most important to consider for compatibility?

Accepted Answer

CPU socket type. The CPU socket type is the most critical compatibility factor because the physical and electrical interface between the CPU and motherboard must match exactly. Even if a CPU has the desired core count or clock speed, it cannot be installed if the socket is incompatible. For a server upgrade, the motherboard's socket (e.g., LGA 4189, SP3) dictates which CPU families are supported, making socket type the primary consideration before other specifications.

Answer

CPU clock speed

Answer

CPU core count

Answer

CPU TDP

Question 7

A company is expanding its office to a new building 5 kilometers away and needs to connect the two LANs so employees can share files and access the same servers as if they were in one location. They want a dedicated, high-speed connection without using the public internet. Which network type should be implemented?

Accepted Answer

Metropolitan Area Network (MAN). A Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is designed to interconnect multiple LANs across a city or metropolitan region, typically up to 50 km, using dedicated fiber optic links such as Metro Ethernet or SONET/SDH. This provides the high-speed, private connection required without traversing the public internet, making it ideal for connecting two offices 5 km apart.

Answer

Local Area Network (LAN)

Answer

Wide Area Network (WAN)

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Personal Area Network (PAN)

Question 8

A small office has intermittent network dropouts. A technician suspects electromagnetic interference (EMI) from nearby fluorescent lights affecting the unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cables. Which tool can best confirm the presence of EMI on the cable?

Accepted Answer

Cable certifier. A cable certifier is the correct tool because it can measure crosstalk, return loss, and other electrical characteristics that reveal the presence of EMI on UTP cables. Unlike simple continuity testers, a certifier performs frequency-domain analysis (e.g., up to 500 MHz for Cat6a) to detect noise and interference that cause intermittent dropouts.

Answer

Tone generator

Answer

Ping

Answer

Wi-Fi analyzer

Question 9

A technician is configuring a network monitoring tool that uses SNMP to query network devices. Which two ports should be allowed for SNMP communication?

Accepted Answer

Port 161 and 162. SNMP uses UDP port 161 for sending queries and receiving responses between the manager and agents, and UDP port 162 for the agent to send unsolicited traps or informs to the manager. These two ports must be allowed through firewalls for proper SNMP communication.

Answer

Port 22 and 23

Answer

Port 80 and 443

Answer

Port 67 and 68

Question 10

A technician is tasked with deploying a virtualized environment for a small office using a single server. The server has 64 GB RAM, two 6-core CPUs, and a RAID 10 array. The technician needs to run four VMs: a domain controller (4 GB), a file server (8 GB), a web server (4 GB), and a database server (16 GB). After deployment, the database server is performing poorly. The technician notices that the hypervisor has allocated 2 virtual CPUs to each VM. Which of the following is the most likely cause of the database server’s poor performance?

Accepted Answer

The database server VM should have more virtual CPUs allocated, such as 4 vCPUs.. The database server is a resource-intensive application that often benefits from multiple CPU cores for parallel processing of queries and transactions. Allocating only 2 vCPUs to it, especially when other less demanding VMs also receive 2 vCPUs, makes it highly susceptible to CPU starvation. The server has 12 physical cores, so there is sufficient capacity to increase the database server's vCPU allocation (e.g., to 4 vCPUs) to better match its workload demands and improve performance. This tests understanding of proper resource allocation in virtualization.

Answer

The RAID 10 array is not fast enough for database I/O.

Answer

The hypervisor is using a Type 2 hypervisor, causing overhead.

Answer

The virtual switch is configured for 100 Mbps instead of 1 Gbps.