220-1101 Practice Exam 53 — 20 Questions

Question 1

A company runs a critical web application on a virtual machine in a public cloud IaaS environment. The application experiences predictable spikes in traffic every weekday from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM. During the spike, the single VM (4 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM) becomes slow. The company wants to ensure consistent performance during the spike without permanently increasing the VM's resources. Which of the following cloud characteristics should the administrator configure to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. Elasticity is the cloud characteristic that allows resources to automatically scale up during predictable traffic spikes and scale down afterward, ensuring consistent performance without permanently increasing VM resources. In this scenario, the administrator can configure auto-scaling rules to add additional VM instances or CPU/RAM during the 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM window, then remove them when demand subsides.

Answer

Scalability

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

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 company hosts its e-commerce application on a public cloud provider. The architecture includes identical virtual server instances in two geographically separate data centers. A global load balancer monitors the health of each data center. If an entire data center becomes unavailable due to a natural disaster, the load balancer automatically redirects all traffic to the remaining healthy data center. The application continues to run without any manual intervention. This capability is BEST described by which cloud characteristic?

Accepted Answer

High availability. High availability (HA) is the correct answer because the architecture uses redundant virtual server instances across two geographically separate data centers with a global load balancer that automatically redirects traffic when an entire data center fails. This design ensures the application remains accessible without manual intervention, which is the defining characteristic of high availability — minimizing downtime through redundancy and automated failover.

Answer

Rapid elasticity

Answer

Measured service

Answer

Resource pooling

Question 4

A company hosts a critical web application on a public cloud provider. The architecture uses virtual server instances in two geographically separate data centers (regions). A global load balancer monitors the health of each region and distributes incoming user traffic. If an entire region becomes unavailable due to a natural disaster, the load balancer automatically redirects all traffic to the remaining healthy region. This design is intended to meet a specific business requirement. Which cloud characteristic does this architecture BEST demonstrate?

Accepted Answer

High availability. This architecture demonstrates high availability because it uses redundant virtual server instances across two geographically separate regions with a global load balancer that performs automatic failover. When an entire region becomes unavailable due to a disaster, the load balancer detects the health check failure (e.g., HTTP 503 or TCP timeout) and redirects all traffic to the remaining healthy region, ensuring the application remains accessible. This design minimizes downtime and meets the business requirement for continuous operation despite regional outages.

Answer

Elasticity

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

Measured service

Question 5

A company hosts a web application on a public cloud IaaS platform. The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes. The cloud platform automatically adds virtual machines when CPU usage exceeds 80% and removes them when usage drops below 30%. The IT team does not need to manually approve the additions or removals. Which essential cloud characteristic does this BEST describe?

Accepted Answer

Rapid elasticity. The scenario describes the cloud platform automatically adding and removing virtual machines based on CPU utilization thresholds (80% and 30%) without manual intervention. This is the defining behavior of rapid elasticity, which allows resources to scale out and in automatically to match demand. Unlike on-demand self-service, which focuses on user-initiated provisioning, rapid elasticity emphasizes the system's ability to dynamically adjust capacity without requiring human action.

Answer

On-demand self-service

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

Measured service

Question 6

A network technician is configuring a small office network with one router and one managed switch. The switch has two VLANs: VLAN 10 for Sales and VLAN 20 for Engineering. Both VLANs need internet access. The technician configures the router's single physical interface (G0/0) with subinterfaces G0/0.10 for VLAN 10 (192.168.10.1/24) and G0/0.20 for VLAN 20 (192.168.20.1/24). The switch port connected to the router is configured as an access port in VLAN 10. Which of the following is the MOST likely result of this configuration?

Accepted Answer

Only devices in VLAN 10 can access the internet.. The switch port connected to the router is configured as an access port in VLAN 10. This means it only carries traffic for VLAN 10, stripping any VLAN tags. The router's subinterface G0/0.20 for VLAN 20 never receives or sends traffic because the access port does not allow VLAN 20 frames. Therefore, only devices in VLAN 10 can reach the router's default gateway (192.168.10.1) and access the internet.

Answer

Both VLAN 10 and VLAN 20 can access the internet.

Answer

Only devices in VLAN 20 can access the internet.

Answer

Neither VLAN can access the internet.

Question 7

A network printer with a static IP address of 192.168.1.100/24 is unreachable from all workstations on the same subnet. The technician can successfully ping the printer's IP address. The printer's web interface loads when accessed from a browser, but shows the status as 'Offline.' Print jobs sent from workstations remain in the queue with a 'printing' status and are never printed. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The printer's firmware is in a hung state. The printer is reachable via ping and its web interface loads, confirming Layer 3 connectivity and that the IP/subnet mask configuration is correct. However, the web interface shows 'Offline' and print jobs are stuck in the queue with a 'printing' status, indicating the printer's firmware or internal print engine is hung and not processing jobs. A hung firmware state prevents the printer from accepting or processing print data even though network communication is intact.

Answer

The printer's subnet mask is misconfigured

Answer

The print server's driver is corrupted

Answer

The network cable is faulty

Question 8

A network technician is troubleshooting intermittent connectivity issues on a small office network. The issue only occurs for a few minutes at a time, and users lose access to both internal servers and the internet. During the issue, the technician can ping the default gateway from the core switch but not from the router. The router logs show multiple 'Duplicate IP address' errors for the router's LAN interface. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

A rogue DHCP server on the network. The 'Duplicate IP address' error on the router's LAN interface indicates that another device on the network is using the same IP address as the router. A rogue DHCP server can assign the router's IP address to another client, causing intermittent connectivity loss. During the conflict, the router cannot respond to traffic, which explains why pinging the default gateway fails from the router but succeeds from the core switch (which may have a cached ARP entry or be on a different VLAN).

Answer

A misconfigured DHCP server on the network

Answer

A spanning tree protocol convergence loop

Answer

A faulty network cable causing CRC errors

Question 9

A systems administrator needs to run multiple virtual machines on a single physical server for a high-performance computing workload. The administrator requires the lowest possible overhead and direct access to hardware resources such as the CPU and memory. Which of the following should the administrator install on the server?

Accepted Answer

A Type 1 hypervisor such as VMware ESXi. A Type 1 hypervisor (bare-metal) like VMware ESXi runs directly on the server hardware without a host OS, providing the lowest possible overhead and direct access to CPU and memory resources. This is essential for high-performance computing workloads where minimal latency and maximum hardware utilization are required.

Answer

A Type 2 hypervisor such as VirtualBox

Answer

A containerization platform such as Docker

Answer

An emulation software such as QEMU without KVM

Question 10

A technician configures a server with a static IP address of 192.168.1.100, subnet mask 255.255.0.0, and default gateway 192.168.1.1. The server can access the internet and devices on the 192.168.1.0/24 network. However, it cannot reach a network printer at 192.168.2.50. The printer is on the same physical LAN but in a different subnet (192.168.2.0/24). The router's interface for the 192.168.2.0 network is 192.168.1.2, and routing is properly configured. Other devices on the 192.168.1.0/24 network (with correct subnet mask 255.255.255.0) can reach the printer successfully. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the server's inability to reach the printer?

Accepted Answer

B. The server's subnet mask is too broad, causing it to try to reach the printer directly rather than through the gateway. The server's subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 creates a /16 network (192.168.0.0/16), which includes both 192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0/24. Because the server believes the printer is on the same local subnet, it sends ARP requests for 192.168.2.50 directly instead of forwarding traffic to the default gateway. Since the printer is on a different physical subnet (despite being on the same LAN), the ARP request never reaches it, and the connection fails.

Answer

A. The server's default gateway should be set to 192.168.1.2 instead of 192.168.1.1

Answer

C. The router is blocking traffic from the server's IP address to the 192.168.2.0 network

Answer

D. The printer's default gateway is misconfigured

Question 11

A technician connects a new workstation to a managed switch port. The workstation receives an IP address from the DHCP server and can ping its own IP address, but it cannot ping any other devices on the local network, including the default gateway. The technician verifies that the Ethernet cable is functional and that the link lights are solid on both the NIC and the switch port. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of this issue?

Accepted Answer

The switch port is configured with an incorrect VLAN assignment.. The workstation receives an IP address and can ping itself, confirming Layer 3 configuration is functional. However, it cannot ping other devices on the local network, including the default gateway. Since the cable and link lights are good, the issue is at Layer 2. An incorrect VLAN assignment on the switch port isolates the workstation into a different broadcast domain, preventing it from communicating with devices in the correct VLAN, including the gateway.

Answer

The workstation's network adapter is set to half-duplex.

Answer

The DHCP server has excluded the workstation's MAC address.

Answer

The default gateway is not configured on the switch.

Question 12

A user reports that their desktop computer loses network connectivity intermittently. When the problem occurs, the link light on the network interface card (NIC) is off. The technician has replaced the Ethernet cable and tried a different port on the switch, but the issue persists. The technician notices that the desktop is located in a cubicle next to a large metal filing cabinet. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the intermittent connectivity?

Accepted Answer

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) from the metal cabinet. The large metal filing cabinet is likely acting as a source of electromagnetic interference (EMI), which can disrupt the electrical signals in the unshielded Ethernet cable. When the NIC's link light is off, it indicates a loss of physical layer connectivity, and EMI is a common cause of intermittent link drops in environments with large metal objects or power sources near data cabling.

Answer

Faulty router causing periodic DHCP lease failures

Answer

Incorrect static IP address configuration on the desktop

Answer

Duplicate IP address conflict on the network

Question 13

A technician is building a new desktop computer. After installing the motherboard, CPU, RAM, and power supply, the technician connects the main 24-pin ATX power cable and the 8-pin EPS12V CPU power cable. When the power button is pressed, the system fans spin briefly and then stop immediately. The motherboard power LED does not light up. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The 24-pin motherboard power connector is not fully seated.. The brief spin and immediate stop of the fans, combined with the motherboard power LED not lighting, indicates that the power supply is entering a protection state (overcurrent or short-circuit protection). This is most commonly caused by the 24-pin ATX connector not being fully seated, which prevents the power supply from receiving the proper 'power good' signal from the motherboard, causing it to shut down to protect components.

Answer

The RAM modules are not seated properly.

Answer

The power supply is not connected to the wall outlet.

Answer

The CPU is not supported by the motherboard.

Question 14

A technician is building a new desktop computer. After installing the CPU, heatsink, and attaching the CPU fan to the motherboard header, the technician connects all power cables. When the system is powered on, the case fans spin and the motherboard LEDs light up, but no display appears and no beep codes are heard. The technician has already verified the monitor works and the video cable is connected to the dedicated GPU. Which of the following should the technician check FIRST?

Accepted Answer

A. Ensure the 8-pin CPU power connector is connected to the motherboard. The system powers on (case fans spin, motherboard LEDs light) but has no display and no beep codes, which indicates the CPU is not receiving power or is not initialized. The 8-pin CPU power connector (EPS12V) supplies dedicated 12V power to the CPU voltage regulator; without it, the CPU cannot execute POST, so no beep codes occur and the system appears dead despite other components receiving power. This is the most likely cause given the technician just installed the CPU and heatsink but may have overlooked this separate power cable.

Answer

B. Reseat the graphics card in its PCIe slot

Answer

C. Check that the RAM modules are installed in the correct slots

Answer

D. Verify the monitor's input source is set correctly

Question 15

A technician is troubleshooting a laser printer that produces pages with horizontal black lines across the entire page. The toner cartridge was recently replaced with a new, genuine cartridge. Which of the following components should the technician inspect or replace NEXT?

Accepted Answer

The imaging drum. Horizontal black lines across the entire page typically indicate a defect on the imaging drum, such as a scratch, toner buildup, or a damaged organic photoconductor (OPC) layer. Since the toner cartridge was recently replaced, the drum (often integrated into the cartridge in many laser printers) may have been damaged during installation or is defective, causing it to fail to discharge properly and deposit toner in a continuous line.

Answer

The fuser assembly

Answer

The transfer roller

Answer

The pickup roller

Question 16

A technician is building a new desktop PC and installs a single 16GB DDR4-3200 memory module into slot A1. The system boots and displays 16GB. The technician then adds a second identical 16GB module into slot B1. The system now only shows 16GB total. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The second module is not fully seated. The most likely reason is that the second memory module is not fully seated in slot B1. When a module is not properly inserted, the system may not detect it, resulting in the same total memory capacity as before (16GB). This is a common issue during installation, and reseating the module typically resolves it.

Answer

The motherboard does not support dual-channel memory

Answer

The second module is defective

Answer

The modules are installed in the wrong slots for dual-channel

Question 17

A technician is troubleshooting a workstation that has intermittent network connectivity. The link light on the NIC is blinking, but the workstation frequently loses connection for several seconds at a time. The technician notices the patch cable runs along the ceiling near a fluorescent light fixture. The cable is an unshielded Cat5e cable. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the intermittent issue?

Accepted Answer

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) from the fluorescent light is corrupting the signal on the unshielded cable.. The blinking link light indicates the NIC is detecting a carrier signal, but intermittent connectivity points to signal corruption. Unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) Cat5e cable lacks a metallic shield, making it susceptible to electromagnetic interference (EMI). Fluorescent light fixtures generate significant EMI, which can corrupt the differential signaling on the cable, causing packet loss and brief disconnections.

Answer

The cable is terminated incorrectly, causing intermittent shorts.

Answer

The cable run exceeds the maximum length for Cat5e (100 meters).

Answer

The workstation's NIC is failing and needs to be replaced.

Question 18

A technician is troubleshooting a desktop computer that powers on (fans spin, LEDs light) but the monitor displays 'No Signal.' The technician has already verified the monitor is functional by testing it with another computer, and the video cable is securely connected to both the computer and monitor. The computer has both an integrated GPU on the motherboard and a discrete graphics card installed. Which of the following should the technician do NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Remove the discrete graphics card and connect the monitor to the motherboard's video port. The correct next step is to remove the discrete graphics card and connect the monitor to the motherboard's video port. This isolates whether the discrete GPU is faulty or improperly seated, because the system may be defaulting to the discrete card even if it is malfunctioning, preventing the integrated GPU from outputting video. Since the monitor and cable are verified functional, the issue is likely with the video output path, and testing the integrated GPU bypasses the discrete card entirely.

Answer

Replace the RAM modules with known-good sticks

Answer

Check the monitor's input source setting

Answer

Reseat the discrete graphics card in its PCIe slot

Question 19

A user reports that their smartphone will charge wirelessly on a charging pad but will not charge when connected to a USB-C cable. The USB-C cable and charger work normally when tested on another phone. The technician has already performed a forced restart and cleaned the charging port with compressed air. Which component should the technician replace FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Charging port. The correct answer is A: Charging port. Since the USB-C cable and charger work on another phone, the cable and charger are verified functional. The phone charges wirelessly, which bypasses the charging port entirely, confirming the battery and charging IC are operational. The technician has already cleaned the port and performed a forced restart, so the most likely remaining hardware fault is a damaged or worn charging port that cannot establish a proper electrical connection with the USB-C cable.

Answer

Battery

Answer

Charging IC

Answer

USB-C cable

Question 20

A technician is troubleshooting a workstation that loses network connectivity intermittently, specifically when the user runs CPU-intensive applications like video rendering. The link light on the network interface card (NIC) turns off during these episodes. The technician has already replaced the Ethernet cable with a known-good cable and switched the workstation to a different port on the same switch, but the problem persists. The same port and cable work fine when tested with a laptop. The workstation has a recently installed high-end graphics card and a 400W power supply that came with the case. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

Insufficient power supply wattage. The intermittent loss of network connectivity specifically during CPU-intensive tasks like video rendering points to a power supply issue. The 400W power supply is likely insufficient to handle the combined load of the high-end graphics card and the rest of the system, causing voltage drops that starve the NIC of power, making its link light turn off. Replacing the cable and switch port with no effect, while the same port works with a laptop, isolates the problem to the workstation's internal power delivery.

Answer

Faulty network card

Answer

Outdated network driver

Answer

Electromagnetic interference from the GPU