220-1101 Practice Test 24 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A network technician is troubleshooting a connectivity issue in a small office. A user's computer obtains an IP address starting with 169.254.x.x. The network uses DHCP from a router with IP 192.168.1.1. The technician checks the cable and sees the link light is on. The computer was working yesterday. Which of the following is the most likely cause?

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

Accepted Answer

The DHCP server has exhausted its IP pool. The 169.254.x.x address is an Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) address, assigned by Windows when DHCP fails. Since the computer worked yesterday and the link light is on, the most likely cause is that the DHCP server's IP pool is exhausted, preventing new leases. This is a common scenario in small offices with limited IP ranges.

Answer

The DHCP server's IP address changed

Answer

The network cable is a crossover cable

Answer

The computer's network adapter is faulty

Question 2

A workstation is connected to a managed switch. It obtains a valid IP address (192.168.10.50) from the DHCP server, but it cannot ping the default gateway (192.168.10.1). The link light on both the workstation NIC and the switch port are solid green. Other workstations on the same switch CAN ping the default gateway successfully. The technician accesses the switch management interface and finds that the workstation's port is configured as an access port on VLAN 10. The default gateway is located on VLAN 20. An inter-VLAN router is configured but not explicitly allowing VLAN 10 access to VLAN 20. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the problem?

Accepted Answer

The switch port is assigned to VLAN 10, while the default gateway exists on VLAN 20, preventing connectivity without proper inter-VLAN routing.. The workstation is on VLAN 10, but the default gateway is on VLAN 20. Without inter-VLAN routing explicitly allowing traffic between VLAN 10 and VLAN 20, the workstation cannot reach the gateway, even though it has a valid IP address from the correct subnet. The link lights are solid green, indicating Layer 1 connectivity is fine, and other workstations on the same switch can ping the gateway, confirming the switch and gateway are operational.

Answer

The workstation's IP address is from a different subnet than the default gateway.

Answer

The workstation's network interface card (NIC) is malfunctioning.

Answer

The DHCP server provided an incorrect default gateway address.

Question 3

A user reports that they can access the internet and browse websites normally, but they cannot access a shared network drive that is mapped to a static IP address (\10.10.10.50\shared). The technician can successfully ping 10.10.10.50 from the user's computer. Which of the following should the technician check NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Verify the Windows Firewall settings on the file server. Since the user can ping the file server at 10.10.10.50, basic IP connectivity and ARP resolution are working. The issue is specific to accessing the SMB share, which is blocked at the transport layer. Windows Firewall on the file server, by default, blocks inbound SMB traffic (TCP 445) on Public network profiles, even though ICMP (ping) is allowed. Checking the firewall rules on the server is the logical next step.

Answer

Check the DNS settings on the user's computer

Answer

Change the network profile on the user's computer from Public to Private

Answer

Reset the user's password and reconnect the mapped drive

Question 4

A user reports that their Android smartphone's battery drains very quickly after a recent app update. The user has already checked battery usage statistics and found that no app is using an unusually high amount of power. The phone is less than a year old. Which of the following should the technician recommend FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Boot the phone into safe mode and observe battery life.. Safe mode disables all third-party applications, allowing the technician to determine if a recently updated app is causing the battery drain without interference from other user-installed software. Since the battery usage statistics showed no single app consuming excessive power, the issue could be a cumulative effect or a background process that safe mode isolates. This is the least invasive and most targeted first step before considering more drastic measures like a factory reset.

Answer

Perform a factory reset.

Answer

Replace the battery.

Answer

Update the operating system to the latest version.

Question 5

A user's smartphone will not charge when plugged into a wall charger. The technician tests the charger with another phone and it works correctly. The technician then inspects the charging port on the smartphone and notices debris inside. Which of the following is the BEST first step to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Clean the charging port with a toothpick. The technician has already verified that the charger works with another phone, isolating the issue to the smartphone itself. Inspecting the charging port revealed debris, which is a common cause of poor electrical contact. Cleaning the port with a non-conductive, non-metallic tool like a toothpick is the safest and most effective first step to restore connectivity without damaging the port's pins or internal components.

Answer

Replace the smartphone battery

Answer

Replace the charging port assembly

Answer

Perform a factory reset on the smartphone

Question 6

A user reports that their smartphone will not power on. The technician connects the phone to a charger and sees a red LED indicator for a few seconds, then it goes off. After leaving it charging for an hour, the phone still will not turn on, and the technician notices the phone feels unusually warm near the battery area. Which of the following components is MOST likely faulty?

Accepted Answer

Battery. The red LED that briefly illuminates and then extinguishes, combined with the phone feeling unusually warm near the battery area after charging, strongly indicates a faulty battery. A degraded or internally shorted battery can accept a small charge (causing the brief red LED) but quickly heat up due to excessive internal resistance or a short circuit, preventing it from holding a charge or powering the device. The battery's inability to deliver sufficient voltage to the system after an hour of charging confirms it is the most likely failed component.

Answer

Charging port

Answer

Screen assembly

Answer

Power button

Question 7

A technician is troubleshooting a workstation that cannot access any network resources. The technician runs ipconfig and sees that the IP address is 169.254.10.50 with subnet mask 255.255.0.0. The link lights on the NIC and the switch port are solid green. The technician connects the workstation to a different wall jack using a known-good cable, but the problem persists. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The DHCP server is unavailable. The IP address 169.254.10.50 with subnet mask 255.255.0.0 is an Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) address, assigned by Windows when a DHCP server cannot be reached. Since the link lights are solid green and the cable and wall jack have been swapped with a known-good cable, the issue is not physical layer connectivity. The most likely cause is that the DHCP server is unavailable, preventing the workstation from obtaining a valid IP address.

Answer

The switch port is administratively disabled

Answer

The default gateway is misconfigured on the router

Answer

The DNS server is not responding

Question 8

A user reports that their computer's internet speed is much slower than expected. A speed test shows 10 Mbps, but the ISP plan provides 100 Mbps. The technician tests a laptop directly connected to the ISP modem and gets 100 Mbps. The user's computer is connected to the network via a wall jack and patch panel. The technician checks the computer's NIC and sees it is negotiating at 10 Mbps. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The Ethernet cable is damaged or of poor quality.. The technician's laptop achieves 100 Mbps when directly connected to the ISP modem, proving the ISP service and modem are functioning correctly. The user's computer negotiates at only 10 Mbps, which is a classic symptom of a faulty or substandard Ethernet cable that fails to support 100BASE-TX signaling. Damaged or poor-quality cables often cause the auto-negotiation process to fall back to 10BASE-T, as the link pulses for 100 Mbps cannot be reliably exchanged.

Answer

The NIC driver is out of date.

Answer

The switch port is configured for 10 Mbps full-duplex.

Answer

The computer has a virus consuming bandwidth.

Question 9

A company is migrating its on-premises virtualized infrastructure to a public cloud IaaS provider. The on-premises VMs were configured with static private IP addresses that are hardcoded in legacy applications for licensing and integration purposes. After migration, the legacy applications fail because the IP addresses assigned to the VMs in the cloud are different from the original on-premises addresses. The cloud provider does not allow the customer to keep the same IP addresses without using additional services. Which cloud computing characteristic is MOST directly responsible for the IP address change?

Accepted Answer

Resource pooling. Resource pooling is the cloud characteristic where the provider's compute resources are pooled to serve multiple customers using a multi-tenant model, with physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to customer demand. This means the customer has no control over the exact underlying IP addressing scheme; the provider assigns IP addresses from its own pool, which are different from the on-premises static IPs. The need for additional services (like VPN or IP address translation) to retain the original IPs is a direct consequence of resource pooling, as the provider cannot guarantee a specific IP address without breaking the shared, abstracted nature of the pool.

Answer

Rapid elasticity

Answer

Measured service

Answer

On-demand self-service

Question 10

A user reports that their Android smartphone's GPS location often jumps around and shows incorrect positions, especially when indoors. The user has already calibrated the compass and enabled high-accuracy mode. The technician notices the phone has a rugged case with a magnetic kickstand. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the GPS inaccuracy?

Accepted Answer

The magnetic kickstand interferes with the magnetometer.. The magnetic kickstand in the rugged case creates a local magnetic field that interferes with the phone's magnetometer. The magnetometer is used to determine the device's orientation relative to Earth's magnetic field, and when it is disrupted, the GPS system cannot accurately correct for heading changes, causing the location to jump or drift, especially indoors where GPS signals are weaker.

Answer

The GPS antenna is damaged.

Answer

The phone's software needs an update.

Answer

The battery is failing and causing voltage fluctuations.

Question 11

A small office has 15 workstations connected to a single unmanaged switch, which is connected to a router that provides internet access. Users report that the network is slow. A technician notices that the activity lights on the switch are blinking rapidly and almost constantly, even during off-peak hours. Which of the following is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

Excessive broadcast traffic. The rapid and constant blinking of activity lights on an unmanaged switch indicates a high volume of frames being forwarded, which is characteristic of a broadcast storm. In a small network, excessive broadcast traffic (e.g., from ARP requests or NetBIOS name resolutions) can saturate the switch's backplane and all ports, consuming bandwidth and causing slowdowns even during off-peak hours. This occurs because switches forward broadcast frames to all ports except the ingress port, and without broadcast storm control (unmanaged switch), the traffic can overwhelm the network.

Answer

Duplicate IP addresses

Answer

Faulty default gateway

Answer

DNS server failure

Question 12

A workstation with a static IP address of 192.168.1.10/24 can ping its default gateway (192.168.1.1) and other workstations on the same subnet. However, it cannot ping any device on a different subnet (e.g., 10.0.0.1) nor access the internet. Other workstations on the same subnet can ping the same remote device and access the internet without issue. The technician has verified the workstation's IP configuration is correct. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The router's ACL or firewall is blocking the workstation's IP address from accessing other networks.. Since the workstation can ping its default gateway and other local hosts but cannot reach remote subnets or the internet, the issue is not with the local IP configuration or the gateway's reachability. The fact that other workstations on the same subnet can access remote networks points to a policy or filtering mechanism on the router that specifically blocks traffic from this workstation's IP address. This is most commonly implemented via a router ACL or firewall rule that denies traffic from 192.168.1.10 to other networks.

Answer

The workstation's firewall is blocking all traffic to remote subnets.

Answer

The default gateway IP address is misconfigured on the workstation.

Answer

The subnet mask is incorrect.

Question 13

A technician is upgrading a desktop PC with a new SATA SSD. After installing the SSD and connecting the SATA data cable to the motherboard and the power cable from the PSU, the system boots but the SSD is not detected in the BIOS. The technician has verified the SATA cable is firmly connected at both ends and the drive is listed in the motherboard's manual as compatible. Which of the following should the technician check NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Enable the SATA port in the BIOS settings.. The SSD is not detected in the BIOS despite being properly connected and compatible. The most likely cause is that the SATA port to which the drive is connected is disabled in the BIOS settings. Many motherboards allow individual SATA ports to be turned off, and checking this setting is a standard first troubleshooting step before replacing hardware or updating firmware.

Answer

Replace the SATA data cable with a known-good one.

Answer

Update the motherboard's firmware.

Answer

Connect the SSD to a different SATA power cable from the PSU.

Question 14

A user reports that their smartphone's Bluetooth has stopped working entirely—it cannot discover any devices and cannot be discovered by other devices. However, Wi-Fi connectivity remains unaffected. The technician has already performed a full network settings reset and tested the device in safe mode. Which of the following hardware components is MOST likely faulty?

Accepted Answer

Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo chip. The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo chip is the most likely faulty component because both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth share the same integrated circuit in modern smartphones. Since Wi-Fi continues to work normally, the Bluetooth portion of the combo chip has failed internally, while the Wi-Fi path remains functional. A full network settings reset and safe mode test rule out software or driver issues, isolating the fault to the hardware.

Answer

Bluetooth antenna

Answer

Power management IC

Answer

Battery

Question 15

A technician replaced a damaged Cat5e patch cable that connected a workstation to a wall jack. After replacement, the workstation reports a network connection speed of 100 Mbps instead of the expected 1 Gbps. Both the workstation's NIC and the switch port support 1 Gbps. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the reduced speed?

Accepted Answer

The new cable is a Cat5 cable instead of Cat5e. Cat5e cable is rated for 1 Gbps (1000BASE-T) up to 100 meters, while Cat5 cable is only certified for 100 Mbps (100BASE-TX) over the same distance. Using a Cat5 cable instead of Cat5e forces the auto-negotiation process to fall back to the highest common denominator supported by the cable, which is 100 Mbps. This explains why the workstation reports 100 Mbps despite both the NIC and switch port supporting 1 Gbps.

Answer

The new cable is a crossover cable

Answer

The new cable exceeds the maximum length for 1 Gbps

Answer

The switch port is configured for 100 Mbps only