This CV0-004 practice question tests your understanding of operations and support. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A cloud administrator notices that a virtual machine running a critical application is using 95% CPU consistently. The application is single-threaded and performance is degraded. Which action should the administrator take to resolve the issue?
Deploy additional VMs and load balance the application.
Why wrong: Single-threaded app cannot be distributed.
Increase the RAM allocation to the VM.
Why wrong: CPU is the bottleneck, not memory.
Migrate the VM to a host with a higher CPU clock speed.
Higher clock speed improves single-threaded performance.
Increase the number of vCPUs assigned to the VM.
Why wrong: The application is single-threaded; more vCPUs won't help.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Migrate the VM to a host with a higher CPU clock speed.
The application is single-threaded, meaning it can only utilize one CPU core at a time. Increasing the CPU clock speed directly improves the processing speed of that single thread, which resolves the performance degradation. Option C is correct because migrating to a host with a higher CPU clock speed provides a faster core for the single-threaded workload.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Deploy additional VMs and load balance the application.
Why it's wrong here
Single-threaded app cannot be distributed.
Increase the RAM allocation to the VM.
Why it's wrong here
CPU is the bottleneck, not memory.
Migrate the VM to a host with a higher CPU clock speed.
Why this is correct
Higher clock speed improves single-threaded performance.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Increase the number of vCPUs assigned to the VM.
Why it's wrong here
The application is single-threaded; more vCPUs won't help.
Common exam traps
CompTIA often tests the misconception that adding more vCPUs always improves performance, but for single-threaded workloads, higher clock speed is the correct solution, not vCPU count.
Detailed technical explanation
Single-threaded applications execute on a single logical processor, so their performance is directly tied to the clock speed and IPC (instructions per cycle) of that core. In virtualized environments, CPU clock speed is determined by the host's physical CPU; migrating to a host with a higher clock speed (e.g., from 2.5 GHz to 3.5 GHz) can yield a proportional performance gain. Real-world scenarios include legacy databases or ERP systems that are not parallelized, where vCPU scaling is ineffective.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A practitioner preparing for the CV0-004 exam encounters this exact type of scenario on the job. The correct answer here is not the most general option — it is the best answer for the specific constraint described. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Real exam questions reward reading the full scenario before eliminating options, because the constraint defines which answer fits.
What to study next
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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FAQ
Operations and Support — This question tests Operations and Support — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Migrate the VM to a host with a higher CPU clock speed. — The application is single-threaded, meaning it can only utilize one CPU core at a time. Increasing the CPU clock speed directly improves the processing speed of that single thread, which resolves the performance degradation. Option C is correct because migrating to a host with a higher CPU clock speed provides a faster core for the single-threaded workload.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 30, 2026
This CV0-004 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 CV0-004 exam.
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