220-1101 Practice Test 41 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A small office network uses a router with DHCP enabled on the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet. A technician configures a file server with a static IP address of 192.168.1.150, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, and default gateway 192.168.1.1. Workstations on the same subnet can ping the router (192.168.1.1) but cannot ping the server. The server can ping its own IP and the router. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The server's firewall is blocking ICMP echo requests. The server can ping its own IP and the router, indicating its IP configuration (address, subnet mask, default gateway) is correct and it has network connectivity. Workstations can ping the router but not the server, which rules out a routing or subnet issue. The most likely cause is that the server's firewall is blocking ICMP echo requests (pings), a common security configuration that prevents the server from responding to ping probes while allowing other traffic.

Answer

The server has been assigned a duplicate IP address

Answer

The subnet mask on the server is incorrect

Answer

The DHCP server has already assigned the address 192.168.1.150 to another device

Question 2

A small office network uses a router with DHCP enabled (192.168.1.0/24). A technician configures a network printer with a static IP address of 192.168.1.150, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, default gateway 192.168.1.1. Workstations on the same subnet can ping the router (192.168.1.1) and other workstations, but cannot ping the printer. The printer can ping its own IP and the router. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The printer's static IP address is within the DHCP scope and conflicts with a lease assigned to another device.. The printer's static IP address 192.168.1.150 falls within the DHCP scope (192.168.1.0/24). If the DHCP server has already leased that address to another device, a conflict occurs. The printer can ping its own IP and the router because its local stack and gateway are configured correctly, but workstations cannot reach it because the router's ARP table or the switch may map the IP to the wrong MAC address, or the conflicting device actively responds to ARP requests, causing communication failures.

Answer

The printer's default gateway is set incorrectly.

Answer

The printer's subnet mask is incorrect.

Answer

The switch port the printer is connected to is malfunctioning.

Question 3

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 4

A small office has a router serving as the DHCP and DNS server. All workstations can access the internet but cannot connect to a local file server using its hostname (\fileserver). They can successfully ping the file server's IP address (192.168.1.10). The technician has verified that the file server is powered on and sharing folders. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the issue?

Accepted Answer

The router's DNS server does not have a record for the file server's hostname.. The router is serving as the DNS server for the network. Since workstations can ping the file server by IP but not by hostname, the issue is that the DNS server lacks an A (or AAAA) record mapping the hostname 'fileserver' to its IP address 192.168.1.10. Without this record, name resolution fails, even though the server is reachable via IP.

Answer

The DHCP lease on the file server has expired.

Answer

The Windows Firewall on the file server is blocking incoming connections.

Answer

The workstations and file server are in different workgroups.

Question 5

A small office has a file server that is a virtual machine running on a Type 1 hypervisor. Users report intermittent connectivity to the file server. The technician has already verified the following: the physical network cables are intact, the switch ports are configured correctly, the host server's physical NICs are operating, and the VM's operating system shows no errors. The technician notices that the file server experiences brief packet loss when communicating with other VMs on the same host, but not when communicating with physical workstations. Which of the following should the technician investigate next?

Accepted Answer

The virtual switch configuration or the VM's network adapter driver. The issue is isolated to VM-to-VM communication on the same host, which bypasses the physical network and relies entirely on the virtual switch and VM network adapter. Packet loss only between VMs points to a misconfigured virtual switch (e.g., promiscuous mode, VLAN tagging, or teaming settings) or a faulty/driver-level issue with the VM's virtual NIC. Physical connectivity and host NICs are already verified, so the virtual networking layer is the logical next step.

Answer

The host server's RAID controller

Answer

The DHCP server lease time

Answer

The file server's hard disk performance

Question 6

A small office uses a DHCP server to assign IP configurations. A new laptop obtains an IP address of 192.168.1.50/24, default gateway 192.168.1.1, and DNS server 10.0.0.1. The laptop can ping the gateway and other local devices, but cannot resolve any domain names. Other devices on the network, which have the DNS server 192.168.1.10 configured, can access the internet without issues. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The DNS server 10.0.0.1 is not reachable from this subnet. The laptop received a DNS server address of 10.0.0.1 via DHCP, but this address is not on the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet. Since the laptop's default gateway is 192.168.1.1, it has no route to reach 10.0.0.1 unless a specific static route or router configuration exists. The inability to resolve domain names while being able to ping the gateway and local devices points directly to a DNS reachability issue, not a general connectivity problem.

Answer

The laptop's default gateway is incorrect

Answer

The laptop has a software firewall blocking DNS requests

Answer

The internet connection is down

Question 7

A system administrator manages a cluster of hosts running a Type 1 hypervisor. The administrator needs to move a virtual machine (VM) from one physical host to another in the cluster without turning off the VM or interrupting its services. The hypervisor supports this capability. Which of the following features should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

Live migration. Live migration (also known as vMotion in VMware environments) allows a running virtual machine to be moved between physical hosts with zero downtime and no service interruption. The hypervisor transfers the VM's memory state and storage access over a dedicated network while the VM continues to operate, then briefly pauses execution to switch over the final state. This matches the requirement of moving a VM without turning it off or interrupting services.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Snapshot

Answer

Cloning

Question 8

A technician installs a new Gigabit Ethernet NIC in a workstation to replace a faulty onboard NIC. After installation, the technician connects the Ethernet cable from the switch to the new NIC. The link light on the new NIC is off. The technician swaps the cable with a known-good cable, but the light remains off. The new NIC is detected in Device Manager with no errors. The technician tries the new NIC in another workstation and it works fine. Which of the following should the technician do NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Check the switch port configuration for port security or error-disable state. Since the NIC works in another workstation and a known-good cable doesn't resolve the issue, the problem is isolated to the switch port. Port security violations or error-disable states (e.g., from spanning-tree BPDU guard, UDLD, or a duplex mismatch) can administratively shut down the port, turning off the link light. Checking the switch port configuration is the logical next step to identify and clear such a condition.

Answer

Replace the switch

Answer

Update the NIC driver to the latest version

Answer

Change the NIC's duplex setting in Windows

Question 9

A technician installs two 8GB DDR4 RAM modules into a desktop motherboard. The system powers on, but the monitor remains black and there are no beep codes from the speaker. The technician has verified that the RAM modules are securely seated and that both the CPU and GPU fans are spinning. The motherboard is known to work with the same RAM model. Which of the following should the technician do NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Test each RAM module individually in a known-working slot.. The system powers on with fans spinning but no POST and no beep codes, which indicates a hardware fault that prevents the motherboard from completing the Power-On Self-Test. Since the RAM is known to work with this motherboard, the most likely issue is a compatibility or seating problem between the two modules. Testing each module individually in a known-working slot isolates whether one module is defective or if the dual-channel configuration is causing a fault.

Answer

Replace the power supply unit.

Answer

Update the motherboard BIOS using a USB flash drive.

Answer

Check the CPU power connector on the motherboard.

Question 10

A support technician is troubleshooting a user's workstation that can successfully ping the loopback address (127.0.0.1) and the default gateway (192.168.1.1), but cannot access any internet websites. The user's web browser displays 'This site cannot be reached' for all URLs. Other devices on the same network can browse the internet without issue. The technician runs ipconfig and finds: IP 192.168.1.50, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, default gateway 192.168.1.1, DNS server 192.168.1.1. The technician can successfully ping 8.8.8.8 from the affected workstation. Which of the following is MOST likely the cause?

Accepted Answer

The DNS server setting is incorrect or the DNS server is not resolving names. The workstation can ping the loopback (127.0.0.1), the default gateway (192.168.1.1), and even a public IP (8.8.8.8), confirming that IP configuration, local network connectivity, and routing are all functional. However, it cannot resolve domain names to IP addresses, as evidenced by the browser's 'This site cannot be reached' error. Since the DNS server is set to 192.168.1.1 (the gateway), and the gateway is reachable, the issue is that the DNS server itself is not performing name resolution, or the workstation's DNS setting is incorrect (e.g., pointing to a non-functional DNS service on the gateway).

Answer

The default gateway is incorrectly configured

Answer

The network cable is faulty or the switch port is malfunctioning

Answer

The web browser is infected with malware that blocks all websites

Question 11

A technician is upgrading a workstation used for graphic design. The user wants to improve application load times and file transfer speeds for large design files. The current system has a single 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive. The motherboard has an available M.2 slot that supports PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA modes, and two available SATA III ports. Which upgrade will provide the MOST noticeable performance improvement?

Accepted Answer

Add a 500 GB M.2 NVMe SSD and migrate the OS and applications to it. The M.2 NVMe SSD uses the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface, which provides significantly higher sequential read/write speeds (up to 3,500 MB/s) compared to a SATA III SSD (up to 550 MB/s) or a 7200 RPM HDD (around 160 MB/s). By migrating the OS and applications to the NVMe drive, the technician directly reduces application load times and accelerates file transfer operations for large design files, offering the most noticeable performance improvement.

Answer

Replace the hard drive with a 2 TB 7200 RPM hard drive

Answer

Add a second 1 TB hard drive and configure RAID 0

Answer

Add a 1 TB SATA SSD and keep the existing hard drive for storage

Question 12

A technician is troubleshooting a server that unexpectedly shut down. The server has redundant power supplies, and the building power is stable. The technician checks the BIOS event log and finds a thermal warning before shutdown. The server is in a rack with other servers, all within temperature range. Which of the following is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

Loose CPU heatsink. A loose CPU heatsink causes poor thermal transfer between the CPU and the heatsink, leading to localized overheating even when ambient temperatures are normal. The BIOS thermal warning followed by shutdown indicates the CPU exceeded its critical temperature threshold, triggering an automatic protection mechanism. Redundant power supplies and stable building power rule out power issues, and the other servers in the rack are within range, isolating the problem to the specific server's cooling hardware.

Answer

A failed power supply unit

Answer

Incompatible RAM

Answer

Hard drive failure

Question 13

A technician installs two identical 8 GB DDR4 RAM modules into a desktop motherboard that has four slots. The system powers on, but the BIOS reports only 8 GB of total memory. The technician has verified that both modules are firmly seated. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

One of the RAM modules is not properly seated in its slot. Option B is correct because if one of the two 8 GB modules is not properly seated, the system will only detect the module that is making full contact. The BIOS reports total memory based on successfully initialized modules; a loose module can cause the memory controller to fail to recognize it, resulting in only 8 GB being reported even though both modules are physically present.

Answer

The modules are not installed in the correct slots for dual-channel operation

Answer

The motherboard does not support 16 GB of RAM

Answer

The XMP profile needs to be enabled to use the full capacity

Question 14

A technician builds a high-performance workstation for video editing. The motherboard supports DDR4 RAM up to 3200 MHz, and the CPU's official memory controller supports DDR4 up to 2933 MHz. The technician installs two 16 GB sticks rated at 3600 MHz. The system boots, but the memory speed is only 2133 MHz. The technician has enabled XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) in the BIOS. Which of the following is the MOST likely reason the RAM is not running at its rated speed?

Accepted Answer

The CPU's memory controller does not support 3600 MHz natively and may not be stable at that overclocked speed. The CPU's official memory controller supports DDR4 up to 2933 MHz natively. The installed RAM is rated at 3600 MHz, which exceeds this specification. Enabling XMP attempts to overclock the memory beyond the CPU's native support, but the system may fall back to a safe default speed (2133 MHz) if the CPU's integrated memory controller (IMC) cannot reliably handle the overclocked frequency. This is the most likely reason the RAM is running at 2133 MHz instead of its rated speed.

Answer

The motherboard only supports a maximum memory speed of 2133 MHz

Answer

The RAM modules are not fully seated in the slots

Answer

The power supply unit (PSU) does not provide enough wattage for the high-speed RAM

Question 15

A systems administrator manages a cluster of three physical hosts running a Type 1 hypervisor. The administrator wants to ensure that if any single host fails, the virtual machines on that host are automatically restarted on another host in the cluster without manual intervention. Which of the following virtualization features should the administrator implement?

Accepted Answer

High availability. High availability (HA) is the correct feature because it automatically restarts virtual machines on a surviving host when a physical host in a cluster fails. In a Type 1 hypervisor cluster, HA continuously monitors host heartbeats and, upon detecting a failure, triggers the restart of affected VMs on another host without manual intervention. This directly satisfies the requirement for automatic recovery from a single host failure.

Answer

Load balancing

Answer

Snapshots

Answer

Live migration