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easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped

What metric does RIP use to choose the best path?

Answer choices

Why each option matters

Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.

A

Distractor review

Cost

OSPF uses cost, not RIP.

B

Best answer

Hop count

Correct. RIP uses hop count.

C

Distractor review

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is used in other protocols such as EIGRP calculations, not RIP.

D

Distractor review

Delay

Delay is not the RIP metric.

Common exam trap

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

A common exam trap is selecting bandwidth or cost as the RIP metric because these are used in other routing protocols like EIGRP and OSPF. Candidates often confuse RIP’s metric with OSPF’s cost or EIGRP’s composite metric, leading to incorrect answers. Remember that RIP’s metric is strictly hop count, which counts the number of routers between source and destination. Misunderstanding this can cause errors in routing decisions and exam responses, especially when questions contrast multiple protocols’ metrics.

Technical deep dive

How to think about this question

Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is one of the oldest distance-vector routing protocols used in IP networks. It determines the best path to a destination based on a simple metric called hop count, which counts the number of routers a packet must traverse to reach the destination network. RIP limits the maximum hop count to 15, considering any route with a hop count of 16 or more as unreachable. This simplicity makes RIP easy to configure but limits its scalability in larger networks. RIP chooses the best path by selecting the route with the lowest hop count metric. Each router advertises its routing table to its neighbors, incrementing the hop count by one for each hop. The path with the fewest hops is preferred, regardless of bandwidth, delay, or other factors. This contrasts with other protocols like OSPF, which use cost based on bandwidth, or EIGRP, which uses a composite metric including bandwidth and delay. A common exam trap is confusing RIP’s hop count metric with other routing metrics such as bandwidth or cost. For example, OSPF uses cost based on interface bandwidth, and EIGRP uses a more complex metric. In practical networking, RIP’s hop count metric can lead to suboptimal routing decisions in networks with varying link speeds, since it treats all hops equally. Understanding RIP’s metric helps avoid misconfigurations and ensures correct routing behavior in Cisco environments.

KKey Concepts to Remember

  • RIP uses hop count as its sole routing metric to determine the best path to a destination network.
  • RIP considers a maximum hop count of 15; routes with a hop count of 16 or more are deemed unreachable.
  • RIP increments the hop count by one each time a routing update passes through a router.
  • RIP does not consider bandwidth, delay, or link cost when choosing the best path, unlike OSPF or EIGRP.
  • RIP’s simplicity makes it suitable for small or simple networks but limits its scalability in larger environments.
  • RIP routers exchange their entire routing tables periodically to maintain updated hop counts.
  • RIP’s hop count metric can cause suboptimal routing in networks with links of varying speeds.
  • Understanding RIP’s metric prevents confusion with other protocols that use different metrics like cost or delay.

TExam Day Tips

  • Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
  • Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.

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More questions from this exam

Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.

Question 1

A router learns the same prefix from both OSPF and EIGRP. Which route is installed by default?

Question 2

A router shows this output: R1#show ip ospf neighbor Neighbor ID Pri State Dead Time Address Interface 10.1.1.2 1 FULL/DR 00:00:34 192.168.12.2 GigabitEthernet0/0 10.1.1.3 1 2WAY/DROTHER 00:00:39 192.168.12.3 GigabitEthernet0/0 Which statement is correct?

Question 3

What is the OSPF metric called?

Question 4

A non-root switch has two uplinks toward the root bridge. One path has a lower total STP cost than the other. What role will the lower-cost uplink have?

Question 5

A router interface applies this ACL inbound: 10 deny tcp any any eq 80 20 permit ip any any A user reports that web browsing to a server by IP address fails, but ping works. Which statement best explains the behavior?

Question 6

A router learns route 198.51.100.0/24 from OSPF with AD 110 and also has a static route to the same prefix configured with AD 150. Which route is installed?

FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this 200-301 question test?

RIP uses hop count as its sole routing metric to determine the best path to a destination network.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Hop count — RIP uses hop count as its metric. Lower hop count paths are preferred, up to the protocol maximum of 15 usable hops.

What should I do if I get this 200-301 question wrong?

Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.

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