220-1201 Practice Test 45 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A technician is troubleshooting a network where a user cannot access a web server at 10.0.0.50. The user's workstation has an IP of 10.0.0.25 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. The technician pings 10.0.0.50 and gets a reply, but the web page does not load. What should the technician check next?

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

Accepted Answer

Check if the web server's firewall is blocking HTTP/HTTPS traffic.. The ping reply confirms Layer 3 connectivity between the workstation and the web server, so the issue is not with IP routing or the default gateway. Since the web page does not load despite successful ICMP echo replies, the problem is likely at Layer 4 or above, such as the web server's firewall blocking HTTP (port 80) or HTTPS (port 443) traffic. The technician should check the server's firewall rules to ensure these ports are open.

Answer

Verify the default gateway on the workstation.

Answer

Change the workstation's IP address to a different subnet.

Answer

Replace the network cable between the workstation and switch.

Question 2

A company uses a public cloud provider for compute resources. To reduce costs, they want to use unused capacity at a lower price but accept that the instance may be terminated with short notice. Which pricing model should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Spot instance. This question tests knowledge of advanced cloud pricing models. A spot instance (or preemptible VM) uses unused cloud capacity at a steep discount but can be terminated when the provider needs the resources back. On-demand is full price, reserved is for long-term commitments, and dedicated hosts are for isolation, not cost savings with termination risk.

Answer

On-demand instance

Answer

Reserved instance

Answer

Dedicated host

Question 3

A user reports that their laser printer prints fine from Windows, but when they print from a macOS device, the output is garbled with random characters. Both devices are on the same network. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The macOS printer driver is incorrect. Garbled output from one OS but not another typically indicates a driver or PPD issue. macOS uses PostScript Printer Description (PPD) files for laser printers, and an incorrect or missing PPD can cause communication errors. Installing the correct driver for macOS resolves the problem.

Answer

The printer's firmware is outdated

Answer

The network cable is faulty

Answer

The printer is set to the wrong emulation mode

Question 4

A customer complains that their inkjet printer's output has horizontal white lines across the page. The cartridges are new and the printer passes a nozzle check pattern. What should the technician check next?

Accepted Answer

Inspect the paper feed rollers. Horizontal white lines on inkjet output often indicate a paper feed issue, such as dirty or worn feed rollers. The roller's surface can lose traction, causing the paper to feed unevenly and creating gaps. Cleaning or replacing the feed rollers typically resolves the problem.

Answer

Replace the printhead

Answer

Clean the encoder strip

Answer

Update the printer driver

Question 5

A small business wants to migrate its email and document collaboration to the cloud but must keep sensitive financial records on local servers due to regulatory requirements. Which cloud deployment model should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Hybrid cloud. This question covers cloud deployment models. A hybrid cloud combines public cloud services (for email/collaboration) with private or on-premises infrastructure (for sensitive data). Public cloud alone would violate regulations, community cloud is for shared industry needs, and private cloud is entirely on-premises, missing the benefits of public cloud for non-sensitive workloads.

Answer

Public cloud

Answer

Private cloud

Answer

Community cloud

Question 6

A user reports that their color laser printer is producing prints with a repeating vertical black line down the left side of every page. The line appears at regular intervals. Which component is most likely causing this defect?

Accepted Answer

Imaging drum. Repeating marks on laser printer output often indicate a damaged component that rotates, such as the imaging drum or fuser roller. The distance between repeats helps identify the source. A vertical line at regular intervals is characteristic of a scratch or debris on the drum.

Answer

Toner cartridge

Answer

Transfer belt

Answer

Fuser roller

Question 7

A technician is troubleshooting a laser printer that frequently jams paper. The jams occur mostly when printing on both sides (duplex). What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The duplex rollers are worn. Duplex printing requires the paper to be flipped and fed back through the printer, which involves additional rollers and a duplex unit. Worn or dirty duplex rollers are a common cause of jams during duplex operations. Cleaning or replacing these rollers often fixes the issue.

Answer

The paper is too thick for the printer

Answer

The fuser is overheating

Answer

The toner cartridge is low

Question 8

A technician is setting up a thermal printer for a retail point-of-sale system that prints receipts. The printer uses direct thermal technology. After installation, the receipts are completely blank when printed. The printer feeds paper and makes printing sounds. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The thermal paper is loaded upside down.. Direct thermal printers use heat-sensitive paper; if the paper is loaded upside down, the thermal coating does not contact the printhead, resulting in blank output. The printer still feeds paper and makes noise because the mechanism works, but no image is produced. Other issues like driver or connection problems would typically cause errors or no activity.

Answer

The printer driver is not installed correctly.

Answer

The printhead is dirty and needs cleaning.

Answer

The printer is set to 'thermal transfer' mode instead of 'direct thermal'.

Question 9

A virtual machine running a database server experiences frequent disk I/O bottlenecks. The host has multiple physical disks. Which configuration change would most effectively improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Configure a pass-through disk for the VM. Pass-through disks give a VM direct access to a physical disk, bypassing the hypervisor's file system layer, reducing overhead and improving I/O performance for database workloads.

Answer

Increase the virtual disk size

Answer

Use a virtual disk on a network-attached storage (NAS)

Answer

Enable disk compression on the virtual disk

Question 10

A network administrator notices that a managed switch is not reporting its status to the central monitoring system. The monitoring system uses a protocol that collects device information such as CPU load and interface errors. Which protocol is most likely not configured on the switch?

Accepted Answer

SNMP. SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is the standard protocol used by network monitoring systems to collect device information such as CPU load, interface errors, and uptime. If the managed switch is not reporting to the central monitoring system, SNMP is most likely not configured or its community strings are misconfigured, preventing the monitoring server from polling the switch.

Answer

SSH

Answer

HTTP

Answer

ICMP

Question 11

A technician is setting up a virtual machine for a developer who needs to test software across multiple OS versions. The VM must have direct access to a USB dongle for licensing. Which VM configuration setting must be enabled?

Accepted Answer

Enable USB passthrough and attach the dongle to the VM. USB passthrough allows the VM to directly access a physical USB device, bypassing the host OS. This is required for devices like dongles that need exclusive access.

Answer

Enable USB 3.0 controller in the VM settings

Answer

Configure network bridging for the VM

Answer

Install the dongle driver on the host OS

Question 12

A technician is configuring a multifunction printer for a legal office that requires all scanned documents to be saved in a searchable PDF format. The printer supports OCR. Which setting must be enabled during the scan job?

Accepted Answer

Enable OCR processing. This question tests knowledge of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) functionality in multifunction devices. OCR converts scanned images into searchable text within a PDF. Without OCR, the PDF would be a non-searchable image.

Answer

Enable duplex scanning

Answer

Set the file format to TIFF

Answer

Increase the scan resolution to 1200 DPI

Question 13

A technician is setting up a new thermal printer for a retail point-of-sale system. The printer uses direct thermal technology and will print receipts. After connecting the printer via USB and installing the driver, the test page prints, but the text is very faint. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The printhead darkness setting is too low. Faint output on a direct thermal printer is typically due to insufficient heat from the printhead. The printhead's temperature setting or the media's thermal sensitivity may be mismatched. Adjusting the darkness or heat setting in the driver or printer configuration is the correct fix.

Answer

The printer driver is incorrect

Answer

The thermal paper is loaded upside down

Answer

The USB cable is faulty

Question 14

During a deployment of a new multifunction printer, the technician needs to ensure the device can scan documents directly to a shared network folder on a Windows server. Which protocol must be configured on the printer to support this?

Accepted Answer

SMB. This question tests knowledge of network protocols used for scanning to a network folder. SMB (Server Message Block) is the standard protocol for file sharing in Windows environments. FTP or email would require additional services, and SNMP is for management only.

Answer

FTP

Answer

SNMP

Answer

SMTP

Question 15

A user reports that their computer connected to a wall jack works fine, but when they move the computer to a different desk and plug into a different wall jack, there is no network connectivity. The switch port shows no link light. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The wall jack is terminated incorrectly.. The most likely cause is that the wall jack at the new desk is terminated incorrectly, such as a miswired T568A/T568B standard or a broken punch-down connection. Since the computer works at the original jack and the switch port shows no link light, the issue is isolated to the new cabling path, not the NIC or switch configuration. Incorrect termination can cause a physical layer failure, preventing the switch from detecting a carrier signal.

Answer

The computer's NIC is faulty.

Answer

The patch cable is not a crossover cable.

Answer

The switch port is administratively down.