220-1201 Practice Test 39 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A user reports that their smartphone's wireless charging pad stops charging after a few minutes, and the phone gets very hot. The phone supports Qi wireless charging. The technician tests the pad with another phone and it works fine. What is the most likely cause?

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

Accepted Answer

The phone case contains metal or magnetic components that interfere with charging.. The phone case is the most likely culprit because Qi wireless charging relies on magnetic induction between the pad's transmitter coil and the phone's receiver coil. Metallic or magnetic materials in a case absorb or redirect the magnetic flux, causing the charging circuit to work harder, generate excess heat, and eventually trigger thermal throttling or a safety cutoff that stops charging after a few minutes. Since the pad works fine with another phone, the fault lies with the phone's charging environment, not the pad itself.

Answer

The phone's battery management system is faulty.

Answer

The phone's wireless charging coil is misaligned with the pad.

Answer

The wireless charging pad is not Qi-certified.

Question 2

A technician is configuring a cloud-based virtual machine for a web server. The VM needs to handle traffic spikes automatically without manual intervention. Which cloud characteristic should be enabled?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. This scenario tests the concept of elasticity in cloud computing. Elasticity allows resources to automatically scale up or down based on demand, which is ideal for handling traffic spikes. Scalability is a broader term that can include manual scaling, while high availability and fault tolerance focus on uptime, not automatic adjustment to load changes.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Answer

Scalability

Question 3

A desktop PC fails to power on. The technician measures the voltage on the 24-pin motherboard connector and finds that the purple wire (5VSB) reads 4.9V, but the green wire (PS_ON) reads 0V when the power button is pressed. What does this indicate?

Accepted Answer

The power supply is faulty and needs replacement.. A desktop PC fails to power on. Measurements: 5VSB is present (4.9V is within tolerance), indicating the power supply is receiving AC power and its standby circuitry is working. When the power button is pressed, PS_ON is pulled low (0V) by the motherboard, which is the correct signal to request the PSU to turn on. Since the PSU does not start (fans don't spin, no other outputs), the fault lies within the power supply itself. A faulty PSU may have a failed main switching circuit or other internal defect preventing it from responding to the PS_ON signal. Therefore, the power supply should be replaced. Option B is incorrect because a low PS_ON indicates the motherboard is functioning correctly in this regard.

Answer

The motherboard is not sending the PS_ON signal, likely due to a fault.

Answer

The power supply's +12V rail is shorted, causing overcurrent protection.

Answer

The front panel power switch is stuck in the closed position.

Question 4

A user's Android phone will not charge when plugged into a car's USB port, but charges fine with a wall adapter. The car's USB port powers other devices. What is the most likely issue?

Accepted Answer

The car USB port does not supply enough current.. The car's USB port likely follows the USB Battery Charging Specification (BCS) 1.2, which defines a Dedicated Charging Port (DCP) as capable of supplying up to 1.5 A. However, many car USB ports are designed only for data transfer and provide a standard downstream port (SDP) limited to 500 mA (USB 2.0) or 900 mA (USB 3.0). The phone's charging circuit detects the available current via USB data line handshaking; if the port cannot supply enough current, the phone may refuse to charge or charge very slowly. Since the wall adapter provides adequate current (typically 1–2 A), the phone charges normally, isolating the issue to insufficient current from the car's port.

Answer

The car's USB port is faulty.

Answer

The phone's USB port is damaged.

Answer

The USB cable is incompatible.

Question 5

A user reports that their smartphone's mobile hotspot stops working after a few minutes of use. The laptop connected to it loses internet access. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The smartphone's hotspot timeout setting is enabled.. The most likely cause is that the smartphone's hotspot timeout setting is enabled. Many smartphones have a built-in power-saving feature that automatically disables the mobile hotspot after a period of inactivity (e.g., 5 or 10 minutes) to conserve battery and data. When this timeout triggers, the hotspot stops broadcasting, causing the connected laptop to lose internet access.

Answer

The laptop's Wi-Fi adapter is faulty.

Answer

The smartphone's cellular signal is too weak.

Answer

The laptop has a static IP address configured.

Question 6

A technician is building a high-performance workstation for video editing. The user needs fast read/write speeds for large 4K video files and wants the OS and applications on the same drive. The motherboard has one M.2 slot (PCIe 4.0 x4) and four SATA III ports. Which storage configuration should the technician recommend?

Accepted Answer

Install one M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD for both OS and video files.. An M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD delivers sequential read/write speeds of roughly 5,000–7,000 MB/s, far exceeding SATA III's ~550 MB/s ceiling, and the single M.2 slot supports it. Using one NVMe drive for both OS and 4K video files satisfies the requirement for fast read/write on large files while keeping the OS and applications on the same high-speed drive. This is the optimal configuration given the motherboard's single M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 slot.

Answer

Install one SATA III SSD for the OS and one SATA III HDD for video files.

Answer

Install two SATA III SSDs in a RAID 0 array for the OS and video files.

Answer

Install one M.2 SATA SSD for the OS and one SATA III HDD for video files.

Question 7

A home user complains that their internet is extremely slow during peak evening hours, but speed tests show fast results late at night. They have a cable modem connection. What is the most likely cause of this issue?

Accepted Answer

Bandwidth congestion from neighbors. Cable internet uses a shared bandwidth model where multiple homes in the same neighborhood connect to a common node. During peak evening hours, increased simultaneous usage from neighbors causes congestion on this shared medium, resulting in slower speeds. Late-night tests are fast because fewer users are active, confirming the issue is contention-based rather than a hardware or throttling problem.

Answer

The modem is overheating

Answer

A faulty Ethernet cable

Answer

The ISP is throttling video streaming

Question 8

During a site survey for a new branch office, you measure signal strength in the conference room and find it is -85 dBm. The client devices require at least -67 dBm for reliable video conferencing. Which action is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Install an additional access point in the conference room ceiling.. The measured signal strength of -85 dBm is well below the -67 dBm threshold required for reliable video conferencing. Installing an additional access point in the conference room ceiling is the most appropriate action because it reduces the distance and obstacles between the client devices and the AP, directly improving the received signal strength (RSSI) to meet the application's requirements. Simply increasing transmit power on the existing AP may cause co-channel interference and may not overcome path loss from distance or obstructions, while changing channels or replacing client antennas does not address the fundamental lack of signal coverage.

Answer

Increase the transmit power of the existing access point to maximum.

Answer

Replace the client devices with ones that have better antennas.

Answer

Change the channel on the existing AP to a less congested one.

Question 9

A network engineer is designing a subnet scheme for a company with three departments: Sales (50 devices), HR (20 devices), and IT (10 devices). The company uses the 10.0.0.0/24 network. To minimize waste, the engineer decides to use variable-length subnet masking (VLSM). Which of the following subnet masks should be assigned to the Sales department?

Accepted Answer

255.255.255.192. The Sales department requires 50 hosts. A /26 subnet mask (255.255.255.192) provides 62 usable addresses (2^(32-26)-2 = 62), which is the smallest subnet that can accommodate 50 devices without waste. VLSM allows using this mask within the 10.0.0.0/24 network, leaving room for other subnets.

Answer

255.255.255.128

Answer

255.255.255.224

Answer

255.255.255.240

Question 10

A small office with 15 employees uses a single switch to connect all workstations. Users report that the network becomes extremely slow during peak hours, and some packets are being dropped. The switch is a 10/100 model with a 1 Gbps uplink to the router. What is the most likely cause of the slowdown?

Accepted Answer

The switch's ports are only 100 Mbps, causing a bottleneck when multiple users are active.. The switch operates at 10/100 Mbps per port, meaning each workstation is limited to a maximum of 100 Mbps. With 15 employees active during peak hours, the aggregate traffic can easily exceed the 100 Mbps per-port capacity, causing congestion, packet drops, and slowdowns. The 1 Gbps uplink to the router is not the bottleneck; the bottleneck is the 100 Mbps access ports connecting the workstations.

Answer

The switch is not a managed switch and cannot prioritize traffic.

Answer

The router's uplink port is faulty and needs to be replaced.

Answer

The switch is a hub, not a switch, causing collisions.

Question 11

A user wants to access their company's webmail using a secure connection from a public Wi-Fi hotspot. The webmail server is configured to use IMAP over SSL. Which port should the email client use?

Accepted Answer

993. IMAP over SSL (IMAPS) uses TCP port 993 to establish an encrypted connection. Since the user is on a public Wi-Fi hotspot and the server is configured for IMAP over SSL, the email client must connect to port 993 to ensure all traffic is encrypted via TLS/SSL. Port 143 is the default for unencrypted IMAP, which would expose credentials and email data on an insecure network.

Answer

143

Answer

110

Answer

995

Question 12

A user reports that the multifunction printer is producing copies with a faint vertical line running down the entire page. The line appears in the same position on every copy, but printed documents from a PC do not have the line. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The scanner glass or scanning strip has a scratch or debris.. A faint vertical line that appears only on copies and not on printed documents from a PC points to the scanning path, not the print engine. A scratch or debris on the scanner glass or the scanning strip (the narrow glass used by the automatic document feeder) would cause a consistent vertical line on every scanned copy. Since PC prints bypass the scanner, they are unaffected, confirming the scanner as the source.

Answer

The toner cartridge is defective and needs replacement.

Answer

The printer's fuser unit is damaged.

Answer

The network cable is faulty.

Question 13

A customer brings in an iPhone that is running iOS 15 and complains that a newly released app crashes immediately upon launch. The app requires iOS 16 or later. What is the best solution?

Accepted Answer

Update the iPhone to iOS 16 or later.. The app crashes because it requires iOS 16 APIs and frameworks that are not present in iOS 15. Updating the iPhone to iOS 16 or later provides the necessary runtime environment, resolving the compatibility issue at the system level.

Answer

Reinstall the app from the App Store.

Answer

Restart the iPhone to clear temporary files.

Answer

Download an older version of the app from a third-party site.

Question 14

A small business owner wants to set up a guest Wi-Fi network that is isolated from the main corporate network to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data. The wireless router supports multiple SSIDs. Which configuration should be applied to achieve this isolation?

Accepted Answer

Assign the guest SSID to a different VLAN. Assigning the guest SSID to a different VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network) creates a logical separation between the guest traffic and the corporate network. VLANs operate at Layer 2, and by placing the guest SSID on a separate VLAN, the router can apply inter-VLAN ACLs or disable routing between VLANs entirely, ensuring that guest devices cannot access corporate resources. This is the standard method for network isolation in multi-SSID environments.

Answer

Use a different SSID name for guests

Answer

Enable WPA2 encryption on the guest network

Answer

Disable DHCP on the guest SSID

Question 15

A customer is moving into a new apartment building that has a fiber optic terminal in the basement. They want the fastest possible internet. What equipment will the technician need to install inside the apartment to complete the connection?

Accepted Answer

An Optical Network Terminal (ONT). Fiber optic internet requires an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) to convert the optical signal from the fiber line into electrical signals that standard Ethernet equipment can use. The ONT is typically installed inside the customer's premises and connects to the fiber terminal in the basement via a fiber patch cable, providing the fastest possible internet speeds.

Answer

A cable modem

Answer

A DSL modem

Answer

A satellite modem