220-1201 Practice Test 23 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A thermal printer used for shipping labels is producing faint, hard-to-read labels. The printer has plenty of thermal paper loaded. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The printhead is dirty or worn. Thermal printers rely on the printhead heating the paper. Faint output usually indicates a dirty or worn printhead. Cleaning the printhead with a thermal cleaning pen or alcohol swab often restores clarity. If the printhead is worn, replacement may be needed.

Answer

The paper is upside down

Answer

The printer driver is incorrect

Answer

The paper is expired

Question 2

A technician is troubleshooting a laser printer that produces a '50.1 Fuser Error' message on the display. The printer is in a dusty warehouse environment. What should the technician do first?

Accepted Answer

Power cycle the printer. A fuser error code like 50.1 indicates the fuser is not reaching the correct temperature or has a hardware fault. The first step is to power cycle the printer to clear temporary errors. If the error persists, the fuser assembly likely needs replacement. Dust can cause overheating or sensor issues.

Answer

Replace the fuser immediately

Answer

Clean the fuser with compressed air

Answer

Update the printer firmware

Question 3

A user reports that their laser printer prints a blank page after every print job. The document itself prints correctly, but an extra blank sheet follows. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The printer driver is set to print a separator page. An extra blank page after a print job is often caused by a setting in the printer driver or application that adds a separator page. This is common when 'Print separator page' is enabled. Checking the driver settings and disabling any separator page option usually resolves it.

Answer

The printer has a low toner cartridge

Answer

The fuser is malfunctioning

Answer

The paper size setting is wrong

Question 4

A technician is deploying a new laser printer in a medical office. After installation, the printer prints a test page correctly, but when users print from their workstations, the output is garbled with random characters. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The printer driver is incorrect or corrupt. Garbled output from a printer that works on a test page but not from workstations usually indicates a driver mismatch. The test page uses the printer's internal firmware, while user print jobs rely on the installed driver. Installing the correct driver for the printer model and operating system resolves the issue.

Answer

The printer's network cable is faulty

Answer

The printer's memory is full

Answer

The printer is set to PostScript emulation but the driver uses PCL

Question 5

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. Ghosting in laser printers is often caused by a worn or damaged cleaning blade that fails to remove residual toner from the drum. The leftover toner transfers to the next page, creating a faint duplicate. Replacing the cleaning blade or drum unit usually fixes the problem.

Answer

The toner cartridge is low

Answer

The fuser is overheating

Answer

The paper is damp

Question 6

During a network upgrade, a technician needs to connect two switches that are 120 meters apart using a copper Ethernet cable. The cable run must support 1 Gbps speeds. Which cable type and configuration should be used?

Accepted Answer

Cat 6a straight-through cable. Cat 6a cabling supports 1 Gbps speeds over distances up to 100 meters, but the question specifies a 120-meter run. However, Cat 6a is designed to handle higher frequencies (500 MHz) and can support 10 Gbps up to 100 meters; for 1 Gbps, it can often exceed the 100-meter limit under proper installation conditions, though the standard maximum for 1 Gbps over twisted pair is 100 meters. The straight-through configuration is correct because modern switches use Auto-MDIX, which automatically detects and corrects for cable type, making crossover cables unnecessary. Given the options, Cat 6a straight-through is the best choice for a 120-meter run at 1 Gbps, as it provides superior signal integrity and noise resistance compared to Cat 5e or Cat 6.

Answer

Cat 5e crossover cable

Answer

Cat 6 crossover cable

Answer

Cat 5e straight-through cable

Question 7

A technician is troubleshooting a DSL connection that keeps disconnecting. The modem shows the DSL light blinking. After checking the phone line, they find a filter is missing on a nearby phone handset. How does this cause the issue?

Accepted Answer

The missing filter allows voice frequencies to interfere with DSL frequencies. DSL operates at frequencies above the voice band (typically 25 kHz to 1.1 MHz for ADSL), while analog phone handsets use the 0–4 kHz range. A missing filter (microfilter) allows the phone handset's impedance changes and noise from voice-band signals to reflect onto the DSL line, causing crosstalk and signal-to-noise ratio degradation. This interference triggers frequent retrains and disconnections, visible as a blinking DSL light.

Answer

The phone handset draws too much power from the line

Answer

The filter is needed to amplify the DSL signal

Answer

The phone handset creates a short circuit without the filter

Question 8

A technician is troubleshooting a user's computer that can reach internal servers by IP address but not by hostname. Other computers on the same subnet work correctly. Which tool should the technician use to check the computer's DNS resolution?

Accepted Answer

nslookup. The user's computer can reach internal servers by IP address but not by hostname, and other computers on the same subnet work correctly. This isolates the problem to the local DNS resolution on the affected machine. The `nslookup` tool is specifically designed to query DNS servers and verify whether a hostname resolves to the correct IP address, making it the appropriate tool to diagnose the DNS resolution failure.

Answer

Ping

Answer

ipconfig /flushdns

Answer

Netstat

Question 9

A small office has intermittent connectivity issues. The technician needs to verify that the Ethernet cable from the wall jack to the workstation meets T568A wiring standards. Which tool is most appropriate for this task?

Accepted Answer

Cable tester with wire map. A cable tester with wire map is the correct tool because it verifies that each of the eight wires in the Ethernet cable is terminated to the correct pin on the RJ45 connector according to the T568A standard. This ensures proper continuity and pin-to-pin mapping, which is essential for reliable network connectivity. Intermittent issues often stem from miswired or broken pairs, which a wire map test can detect.

Answer

Multimeter

Answer

Toner and probe

Answer

Crimper

Question 10

A technician is setting up a dual-monitor workstation for a financial analyst. The PC has one HDMI port and one DisplayPort. The monitors have HDMI and DVI inputs, respectively. Which cable combination will allow both monitors to display?

Accepted Answer

HDMI to HDMI and DisplayPort to DVI (with adapter). It uses the PC's HDMI port to connect directly to the HDMI monitor with an HDMI-to-HDMI cable, and the PC's DisplayPort to connect to the DVI monitor using a DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter/cable. This is the standard method. Option A uses an HDMI-to-DVI cable for the DVI monitor and a DisplayPort-to-HDMI cable for the HDMI monitor. While technically possible, the question asks for a cable combination, and HDMI-to-DVI cables are often considered adapters rather than standard cables. Additionally, DisplayPort-to-HDMI cables are less common than the direct approach in D. Therefore, D is the best choice.

Answer

HDMI to DVI and DisplayPort to HDMI

Answer

Two HDMI cables, using a splitter

Answer

DisplayPort to HDMI and VGA to DVI

Question 11

A user complains that their smartphone frequently disconnects from the office Wi-Fi and then reconnects after a few seconds. The issue occurs only when the user walks to a specific part of the building. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The smartphone is encountering a Wi-Fi dead zone due to building materials.. The issue occurs only when the user walks to a specific part of the building, which strongly indicates a physical obstruction or signal absorption by building materials (e.g., concrete, metal studs, or rebar). Wi-Fi signals in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands attenuate significantly when passing through dense materials, creating localized dead zones where the client device loses connectivity and then reconnects upon moving back into range. This matches the symptom of frequent disconnects and reconnects tied to a specific location.

Answer

The smartphone's battery saver mode is turning off Wi-Fi.

Answer

The office access point is overloaded with too many connections.

Answer

The smartphone's Wi-Fi antenna is loose.

Question 12

After updating the firmware on a workstation, the system fails to boot and displays a 'Boot Device Not Found' error. The hard drive is detected in UEFI settings. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The boot mode changed from Legacy to UEFI (or vice versa). A firmware update can reset UEFI settings to defaults, including boot mode. If the drive was formatted for Legacy (CSM) but the system now defaults to UEFI, or vice versa, the bootloader won't be found. This tests understanding of boot mode compatibility.

Answer

The hard drive has failed due to the update

Answer

Secure Boot is blocking the bootloader

Answer

The CMOS battery needs replacement

Question 13

A technician is troubleshooting a monitor that displays a 'fuzzy' image with ghosting. The monitor is connected via VGA. The technician has already tried a different VGA cable and the issue persists. What should the technician check next?

Accepted Answer

Route the VGA cable away from power cables and other electronics.. The symptoms described (fuzzy image with ghosting) are classic signs of electromagnetic interference (EMI) affecting an analog VGA signal. Since the technician has already ruled out a faulty VGA cable, the next logical step is to ensure the cable is not running parallel to power cables or near other electronics that can induce interference. Re-routing the VGA cable away from such sources can eliminate the ghosting without replacing hardware or changing settings.

Answer

Replace the monitor.

Answer

Change the resolution to a lower setting.

Answer

Update the graphics driver.

Question 14

A technician is configuring a company-issued Android tablet for a field worker. The worker needs to use a specific business app that requires location access to log job sites. What should the technician do to ensure the app works correctly?

Accepted Answer

Grant the location permission when the app requests it.. This question tests understanding of mobile app permissions. For an app that needs location data to function, the technician must grant the location permission when prompted or via settings. Denying or ignoring the permission will prevent the app from accessing location services, leading to malfunction.

Answer

Disable location services to save battery.

Answer

Install a third-party location spoofing app.

Answer

Set the tablet to Airplane mode to prevent network interference.

Question 15

A company’s web server is accessible from the internal network but not from the internet. The server has a static IP of 192.168.1.10, and the router’s public IP is 203.0.113.50. What configuration is most likely missing?

Accepted Answer

Port forwarding is not configured on the router.. For a server on a private IP to be accessible from the internet, the router must have port forwarding configured to direct incoming traffic to the server’s private IP. Without it, requests to the public IP are dropped.

Answer

The server’s default gateway is incorrect.

Answer

A firewall rule on the server is blocking inbound traffic.

Answer

The DNS A record for the server points to the wrong IP.