220-1201 Practice Question: A technician is troubleshooting a connectivity…

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  The default gateway is down.

  Why it's wrong here

  If the default gateway were down or unreachable, the user's computer would be unable to send traffic outside its local network. A traceroute command would fail immediately at the first hop, showing timeouts for the gateway itself. Since the problem statement implies that the first hop *does* respond, the default gateway is clearly operational and reachable from the user's computer, ruling out this option.

• ✗

  The web server is offline.

  Why it's wrong here

  If only the web server were offline, a traceroute would typically show successful responses from all intermediate routers along the path until it reached the network segment where the web server resides. The final hop, representing the web server itself, would then time out. The described pattern of timeouts occurring *after* the first hop, rather than just at the final destination, indicates a broader routing or network infrastructure problem, not merely an unreachable application server.

• ✓

  A router along the path is misconfigured or dropping packets.

  Why this is correct

  This is the most likely cause. If the first hop (the default gateway) responds successfully, but subsequent hops in a traceroute operation time out, it indicates that traffic is leaving the local network but failing to reach further destinations. This pattern strongly suggests an issue with a router or firewall beyond the local segment, such as incorrect routing table entries, an access control list (ACL) blocking ICMP traffic, or a device experiencing excessive load and dropping packets.

• ✗

  The user's computer has a duplicate IP address.

  Why it's wrong here

  A duplicate IP address on the user's computer would typically cause intermittent connectivity issues, network conflicts, or complete inability to communicate, often accompanied by system warnings. However, the ability to successfully ping the default gateway demonstrates that the user's computer has a valid and functional IP configuration on its local segment, making a duplicate IP address an unlikely cause for timeouts occurring *after* the first hop.