easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
CV0-004 Practice Question: Refer to the exhibit
Network Topology
Refer to the exhibit. A cloud administrator runs this command on a VM. Which of the following is most likely causing the high 'wa' value?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common trap in CompTIA Cloud+ exams is to misinterpret a high 'wa' value as a symptom of high CPU load or memory pressure, when in fact it specifically indicates the CPU is waiting for disk I/O, not that it is busy processing.
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
✓
Disk I/O bottleneck
The 'wa' value in the output of the 'top' or 'vmstat' command represents the percentage of time the CPU spends waiting for I/O operations to complete. A high 'wa' value indicates that the CPU is frequently idle because it is waiting for data from storage devices, which is a classic symptom of a disk I/O bottleneck. This occurs when the storage subsystem cannot keep up with the read/write requests from the VM, causing the CPU to stall.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Disk I/O bottleneck
Why this is correct
High 'wa' indicates CPU waiting for disk I/O, suggesting a bottleneck.
- ✗
Network congestion
Why it's wrong here
vmstat does not show network metrics; 'wa' is specifically I/O wait.
- ✗
High CPU load
Why it's wrong here
CPU idle is 70% and user/system are low; load is not high.
- ✗
Insufficient memory
Why it's wrong here
Low free memory is not indicated; si/so are 0, and cache usage is high.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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