hardmultiple choiceObjective-mapped

A technician is troubleshooting a workstation that has intermittent network connectivity. The link light on the NIC flashes on and off irregularly. The workstation is connected to a 1 Gbps switch port. The technician runs a loopback test on the NIC, which passes. The cable is a known-good Cat6 cable. The technician checks the switch port configuration and finds it is hard-coded to 100 Mbps full duplex. The workstation NIC is set to auto-negotiate. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the issue?

Question 1hardmultiple choice
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A technician is troubleshooting a workstation that has intermittent network connectivity. The link light on the NIC flashes on and off irregularly. The workstation is connected to a 1 Gbps switch port. The technician runs a loopback test on the NIC, which passes. The cable is a known-good Cat6 cable. The technician checks the switch port configuration and finds it is hard-coded to 100 Mbps full duplex. The workstation NIC is set to auto-negotiate. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the issue?

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

Faulty NIC

A faulty NIC is unlikely because the loopback test passed, which verifies that the NIC's transmitter and receiver are functioning correctly.

B

Best answer

Duplex mismatch

Hard-coding the switch port to 100/full while the NIC is set to auto-negotiate causes a duplex mismatch. The NIC defaults to half duplex, leading to collisions and intermittent link drops.

C

Distractor review

Bad cable

The technician has already verified a known-good Cat6 cable, so a faulty cable is not the cause.

D

Distractor review

Incorrect VLAN assignment

An incorrect VLAN assignment would typically prevent all communication (unless routing is involved), not cause intermittent connectivity with a flashing link light.

Common exam trap

Common exam trap: an active trunk can still block the VLAN you need

A trunk being up does not prove every VLAN is crossing it. Check allowed VLAN lists, native VLAN mismatch, VLAN existence and access-port assignment.

Technical deep dive

How to think about this question

VLAN questions usually combine access-port and trunking clues. The key is to identify whether the issue is local to one switchport, caused by the trunk, or caused by the VLAN not existing where it needs to exist.

KKey Concepts to Remember

  • Access ports place end devices into a single VLAN.
  • Trunk ports carry multiple VLANs between switches.
  • Allowed VLAN lists decide which VLANs can cross a trunk.
  • Native VLAN mismatch can create confusing symptoms.

TExam Day Tips

  • Use show vlan brief to verify access VLANs.
  • Use show interfaces trunk to verify trunk state and allowed VLANs.
  • Do not treat every same-VLAN issue as a routing problem.

Related practice questions

Related 220-1101 practice-question pages

Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.

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 user reports intermittent network connectivity on a desktop computer. The technician observes that the Ethernet link light on the NIC turns off for a few seconds and then turns back on. The cable passes a wiremap test, the switch port is verified good with another device, and the NIC driver is updated. The issue occurs more frequently when the computer's case fan runs at high speed. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Question 2

A workstation is unable to connect to the internet. The technician runs the 'ipconfig' command and sees the IPv4 address is 169.254.15.200 with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0. The workstation can ping other devices on the local subnet but cannot ping the default gateway or any external addresses. Which TWO actions should the technician take to resolve this issue? (Select two.)

Question 3

A workstation is connected to a managed switch. It obtains a valid IP address (192.168.10.50) from the DHCP server, but it cannot ping the default gateway (192.168.10.1). The link light on both the workstation NIC and the switch port are solid green. Other workstations on the same switch CAN ping the default gateway successfully. The technician accesses the switch management interface and finds that the workstation's port is configured as an access port on VLAN 10. The default gateway is located on VLAN 20. An inter-VLAN router is configured but not explicitly allowing VLAN 10 access to VLAN 20. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the problem?

Question 4

A company develops a web application that relies on a custom library available only for a specific Linux distribution. They want to deploy the application in the cloud with minimal administrative overhead, but they need full control over the software stack, including the ability to install the custom library and configure the web server. Which cloud service model BEST meets these requirements?

Question 5

A company has a legacy virtual machine running on a deprecated hypervisor (Hyper-V). They want to migrate this VM to a new hypervisor (VMware vSphere) hosted in a private cloud while preserving the VM's configuration, installed applications, and data. The migration must be performed with minimal downtime. Which of the following methods is MOST appropriate?

Question 6

A company hosts a critical database on a virtual machine in a public cloud. The database requires persistent storage that must be retained even if the VM is terminated. The storage must also be accessible from multiple VMs simultaneously for a future high-availability configuration. Which type of cloud storage BEST meets these requirements?

FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this 220-1101 question test?

Access ports place end devices into a single VLAN.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Duplex mismatch — Duplex mismatch occurs when one device is configured for full duplex and the other is set to auto-negotiate. When a switch port is hard-coded to 100 Mbps full duplex and the workstation NIC is set to auto-negotiate, the auto-negotiation process fails because the switch is not advertising its capabilities. The NIC then defaults to half duplex, causing a duplex mismatch. This leads to collisions, frame errors, and intermittent connectivity. A loopback test passing indicates the NIC is functional. The cable is known-good. An incorrect VLAN assignment would typically result in no connectivity rather than intermittent issues.

What should I do if I get this 220-1101 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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