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220-1202 Practice Question: A technician is troubleshooting a user's…
A technician is troubleshooting a user's inability to access a specific website. The user can access other websites without issue. The technician wants to check the route packets take to the problematic server and identify where the connection fails. Which command should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
CompTIA A+ often tests the distinction between connectivity testing (`ping`) and path discovery (`tracert`), trapping candidates who think `ping -t` is sufficient for route analysis, when it only verifies end-to-end reachability without hop-by-hop detail.
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
✓
tracert example.com
The `tracert` command (short for 'trace route') is the correct tool because it sends ICMP Echo Request packets with incrementally increasing TTL (Time to Live) values, causing each router along the path to reply with an ICMP Time Exceeded message. This reveals the exact hop-by-hop path to the destination and pinpoints where the connection fails, which is precisely what the technician needs to diagnose a site-specific outage.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
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ping -t example.com
Why it's wrong here
ping -t sends continuous ICMP echo requests to the destination only, revealing reachability and latency but no intermediate hops, so it cannot identify where the path breaks. It is tempting because it confirms whether the server responds at all, which suits testing basic connectivity rather than tracing the route.
- ✓
tracert example.com
Why this is correct
tracert sends ICMP or UDP probes with incrementing TTL values, revealing each hop and pinpointing where packets stop or time out en route to the server. This isolates whether the failure lies locally, at an intermediate router, or at the destination.
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nslookup example.com
Why it's wrong here
nslookup resolves a hostname to an IP address through DNS; it returns no hop-by-hop path data, so it cannot show where the connection fails. It is tempting because it confirms whether name resolution is the fault, which would be the right check if the browser reported an unknown-host error.
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netstat -an
Why it's wrong here
netstat -an lists local sockets and their states on the technician's own machine; it captures no path information toward the remote server. It is tempting because it shows established connections and listening ports, which suits diagnosing local port conflicts or checking whether a session to the site exists.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 220-1202 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA 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 220-1202 exam.