easyMultiple Choice
CCNP Practice Question: Which BGP attribute is preferred with the lowest…
Which BGP attribute is preferred with the lowest value?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the confusion between attributes that use 'lowest is best' (like MED and IGP metric) versus 'highest is best' (like Local Preference and Weight), so candidates mistakenly apply the 'highest is best' rule to MED.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
MED
MED (Multi-Exit Discriminator) is a BGP attribute that is preferred with the lowest value. It is used to influence inbound traffic to an AS when multiple entry points exist, and a lower MED value is more preferred over a higher one.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
MED
Why this is correct
MED (Multi-Exit Discriminator) is an optional, non-transitive BGP attribute used to influence inbound traffic from a neighboring autonomous system. When comparing multiple paths that share the same neighboring AS, Cisco IOS prefers the path with the lowest MED value, making lower better. MED is the correct answer because it is the only attribute among the listed options where a numerically lower value is explicitly preferred in BGP path selection, and it is typically set to reflect internal IGP metrics or link costs.
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Local Preference
Why it's wrong here
Local Preference (LocalPref) is an administrative attribute used to select the preferred exit point for outbound traffic within an autonomous system. It is exchanged only among iBGP peers and is never advertised to external BGP peers. During path selection, the router chooses the path with the highest LocalPref value, with the default set to 100, so higher values are preferred, not lower. Therefore, LocalPref does not match the 'lower is better' criterion and is incorrect.
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Weight
Why it's wrong here
Weight is a Cisco-proprietary BGP attribute that is locally significant to a single router and is used to influence the best path for traffic originating or transiting that router. Weight values range from 0 to 65535, and the route with the highest Weight is always preferred, with locally originated routes typically assigned a Weight of 32768. Since Weight is not advertised to any BGP peer and higher values win, it cannot be the correct answer to a question asking for an attribute where lower is preferred.
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Origin
Why it's wrong here
The Origin attribute indicates how BGP initially learned a route, using one of three codes: IGP (i), EGP (e), or Incomplete (?). BGP path selection prefers routes in the order IGP > EGP > Incomplete, which is a categorical ordering, not a numeric comparison where lower is better. Unlike MED, Origin does not have a discrete value that can be compared as 'higher' or 'lower'; it represents a route's source type. Thus, Origin is incorrect because lower origin codes are not uniformly preferred and the attribute is not a metric.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 350-401 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 350-401 exam.