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200-901 Practice Question: A developer is writing an application that needs…
A developer is writing an application that needs to send a large amount of data reliably over a network. Which transport layer protocol should the developer use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between transport-layer protocols (TCP vs. UDP) and higher-layer protocols (HTTP), so the trap here is that candidates might choose HTTP because it is commonly used for data transfer, forgetting that it is not a transport-layer protocol.
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
✓
TCP
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is the correct choice because it provides reliable, connection-oriented data delivery with acknowledgments, retransmission, and sequencing. This ensures that large amounts of data are transmitted without loss or corruption, which is critical for applications requiring data integrity.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
TCP
Why this is correct
TCP provides connection-oriented, reliable delivery: sequence numbers, acknowledgements and retransmission recover lost or reordered segments, and flow control prevents overwhelming the receiver. This guarantees the integrity of large transfers, which the unreliable, best-effort UDP cannot.
- ✗
ICMP
Why it's wrong here
ICMP is a network-layer control and error-reporting protocol, not a transport protocol, so it provides no ports, no segmentation and no delivery guarantees for bulk application data. It is tempting because ping and traceroute rely on it for reachability testing, which is diagnostic rather than data transport.
- ✗
HTTP
Why it's wrong here
HTTP is an application-layer protocol that runs over TCP; it defines request and response semantics rather than reliability mechanisms, so it cannot itself guarantee ordered delivery. It is tempting because web applications routinely move large payloads, but the reliability there comes from the underlying TCP transport.
- ✗
UDP
Why it's wrong here
UDP offers no delivery guarantees, ordering, or retransmission, so it cannot ensure reliable transfer of large data volumes. It suits latency-sensitive, loss-tolerant traffic such as streaming or DNS queries. Reliable bulk transfer requires TCP's acknowledgements and retransmission mechanisms.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 200-901 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 200-901 exam.