010-160 Practice Test 5 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A community college instructor is preparing a lesson on the origins of the Linux operating system. She wants to explain why Linux is described as a 'kernel' rather than a complete operating system, and which project provided the essential user-space tools that were combined with it. Which project supplied those foundational command-line utilities?

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

Accepted Answer

The GNU Project. Linux by itself is only a kernel: it manages hardware, processes, and memory but offers no shell, compiler, or standard utilities. The GNU Project had already built those user-space components, so merging them with the Linux kernel produced a complete operating system. This is why the community frequently refers to the combined result as GNU/Linux, and why GNU is the correct source of the foundational tools.

Answer

The Mozilla Foundation

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The Apache Software Foundation

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The XFree86 Project

Question 2

What is the purpose of the '..' notation in a file path?

Accepted Answer

Parent directory. In filesystem path notation, a single dot (.) refers to the current directory, while two dots (..) refer to the parent directory — the directory one level above the current working directory. This is a POSIX convention used across Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems.

Answer

Current directory

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Root directory

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Home directory

Question 3

An administrator needs to monitor network traffic in real-time on a specific interface. Which tool is commonly used to capture and display packets?

Accepted Answer

tcpdump. tcpdump is the classic command-line packet capture tool that reads frames from a network interface via libpcap and displays them in real time or writes them to a pcap file. It supports BPF filter expressions to narrow captured traffic, making it ideal for live monitoring on a specific interface (e.g., tcpdump -i eth0). This matches the requirement to capture and display packets.

Answer

netstat

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iptables

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nmap

Question 4

You are currently in '/home/user/docs' and need to move to '/etc'. Which command is correct?

Accepted Answer

cd /etc. `cd /etc` uses an absolute path (starting with /), which navigates directly to /etc regardless of the current working directory. Absolute paths are resolved from the filesystem root, so this works from anywhere. This is the correct and unambiguous way to move to /etc.

Answer

cd ~/etc

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cd ../../etc

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cd etc

Question 5

You need to search for a specific command description within the manual pages using a keyword. Which command should you use?

Accepted Answer

man -k. The 'man -k' option (equivalent to 'apropos') searches the manual page short descriptions for a keyword and returns all matching entries, which is exactly what you need when you know a concept but not the command name. It queries the whatis database built by mandb/makewhatis. This is the standard way to locate commands by keyword rather than by exact name.

Answer

man -s

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man -f

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help

Question 6

Which THREE of the following are types of manual page sections?

Accepted Answer

User commands (1). The Linux manual pages are organized into numbered sections, and the three options marked correct are genuine section types: B 'User commands (1)' is section 1, which documents executable programs and shell commands users can run; C 'System calls (2)' is section 2, which documents the kernel system-call interface used by programs such as open(2) and read(2); and D 'File formats (5)' is section 5, which documents file formats and conventions such as /etc/passwd(5) and proc(5). The unmarked options do not belong: A 'Network protocols (10)' is not a manual section (section 10 does not exist in the standard man-pages layout), and E 'Kernel hardware (20)' is not a manual section either (section 20 is not a standard section; hardware-related pages typically appear in section 4, 'Devices and special files').

Answer

Network protocols (10)

Answer

Kernel hardware (20)

Question 7

Which command is used to display the current working directory in the terminal?

Accepted Answer

pwd. The `pwd` command stands for 'print working directory' and is specifically designed to output the absolute path of the current directory in a Linux/Unix terminal. It reads the current directory from the kernel and displays it, making it the correct choice for this task. This is a fundamental command in the Linux Essentials (010-160) exam domain.

Answer

dir

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cd

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ls

Question 8

A junior administrator needs to display the full contents of /etc/hostname and also see line numbers next to each line. Which command accomplishes this?

Accepted Answer

cat -n /etc/hostname. The cat command copies file contents to standard output, and its -n option prepends a line number to every line, including empty ones. That combination displays the entire file with numbering in a single non-interactive command. The alternatives either misuse an option, open an interactive pager, or merely count lines instead of showing the content.

Answer

wc -l /etc/hostname

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less -N /etc/hostname

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head -n /etc/hostname

Question 9

Which THREE commands are used to manage user account lifecycle?

Accepted Answer

useradd. The three commands that manage the user account lifecycle are useradd (C), userdel (D), and usermod (E). useradd creates a new user account, including its entry in /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /etc/group, and optionally provisions a home directory and default shell, which is the creation phase of the lifecycle. userdel removes a user account and, with options like -r, also deletes the home directory and mail spool, covering the deletion phase. usermod modifies an existing account's attributes such as login name (-l), UID (-u), shell (-s), groups (-aG), and account expiry, covering the maintenance/modification phase. passwd (A) only changes or manages a user's password and password aging, and groupadd (B) only creates groups, so neither manages the full user account lifecycle of create, modify, and delete.

Answer

passwd

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groupadd

Question 10

A junior Linux administrator is exploring ways to participate in the open source community beyond simply using the software. Which two activities represent direct contributions to an open source project? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Writing or updating documentation that explains how to install and configure the software. Direct contributions are artifacts submitted back to a project: code patches, documentation updates, translations, bug reports with reproductions, and testing feedback. Submitting a patch or pull request and writing or updating documentation both produce reviewable artifacts that maintainers can merge. Personal use, reading release notes, and recommending the software are consumption or advocacy activities that do not add anything to the project itself.

Answer

Recommending the software to colleagues who are looking for alternatives

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Reading the project's release notes to learn about new features

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Installing the software on a personal laptop and using it for daily tasks