N10-009 domain
Networking Concepts
Use this page to practise N10-009 Networking Concepts practice questions. The goal is not to memorise dumps, but to understand the concept, review the explanation and improve your exam readiness.
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What to know about Networking Concepts
Networking Concepts questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.
How the topic appears in realistic exam-style scenarios.
Which detail in the question changes the correct answer.
How to eliminate plausible but wrong options.
How to connect the question back to the wider exam objective.
Question index
All Networking Concepts questions (100)
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A network administrator is troubleshooting a connectivity issue and suspects the problem is related to the physical cabling. At which layer of the OSI model should the administrator begin their investigation?
2A device is configured with IP address 192.168.1.130 and subnet mask 255.255.255.192. What is the network address of this device?
3A network technician is explaining the concept of encapsulation to a junior technician. At which OSI layer does a packet get encapsulated with a source and destination IP address?
4A network engineer is designing a new IPv6 addressing scheme. The company has been assigned a /48 prefix and needs to support up to 250 subnets. Which subnet size should be used to minimize waste while meeting the requirement?
5A network technician is explaining the difference between a hub and a switch to a junior technician. Which statement correctly describes a key difference between these devices?
6A network engineer needs to connect two network segments that use different physical media: one segment uses copper Ethernet and the other uses fiber optic. The device must forward frames based on MAC addresses and must not perform any routing. Which device should the engineer choose?
7A network engineer is troubleshooting a communication issue between two hosts. The engineer determines that the data is being segmented at the source and reassembled at the destination, but the segments are arriving out of order. Which OSI layer is responsible for sequencing the segments?
8A network technician is assigned a subnet mask of 255.255.255.248. How many usable host addresses are available in this subnet?
9A network technician is explaining the OSI model to a junior technician. The technician mentions that the Transport layer is responsible for end-to-end communication and data segmentation. Which protocol operates at the Transport layer?
10A network engineer is designing a subnet that can support at least 10 hosts. Which subnet mask would provide exactly 14 usable host addresses?
11Which of the following protocols is used to automatically assign IP addresses to devices on a network?
12Which of the following is a characteristic of UDP when compared to TCP?
13A network engineer needs to transfer a large database file from one server to another across a WAN link. The transfer must be reliable and guarantee that the data arrives without errors. Which transport layer protocol should the engineer use?
14A network device receives a frame and forwards it based on the destination MAC address. The device does not modify the frame and only floods unknown unicast frames. At which layer of the OSI model does this device operate?
15A network device receives a frame on one port and forwards it out to all other ports. The device does not examine the destination MAC address. Which type of device is being described?
16A network engineer needs to assign IP addresses to a new subnet that will support exactly 25 devices. Which subnet mask would provide the minimum number of usable host addresses while still accommodating the requirement?
17A network engineer is designing a network and needs to ensure that broadcast traffic is contained within a single broadcast domain. Which of the following devices should be used to create these separate broadcast domains?
18A network administrator wants to segment the network into multiple virtual LANs to reduce broadcast traffic. Which device is required to route traffic between these VLANs?
19A company needs a subnet that will support exactly 50 devices. Which subnet mask provides the minimum number of usable host addresses while still accommodating the requirement?
20A network administrator is configuring BGP between two autonomous systems. Which BGP attribute is primarily used to influence inbound traffic to a particular AS?
21A technician needs to connect two different networks and forward traffic based on IP addresses. Which of the following devices operates at Layer 3 of the OSI model and should be used?
22A network administrator needs to create a subnet that supports exactly 50 hosts. Which subnet mask provides the smallest subnet that meets this requirement?
23A network engineer configures OSPF on two routers with a primary link (1 Gbps) and a backup link (100 Mbps). The engineer expects traffic to always use the primary link unless it fails, but the router is sending traffic over the backup link. What is the most likely cause?
24A network engineer is troubleshooting connectivity issues between two data center switches that are configured to support jumbo frames with an MTU of 9000. The link is a 10 Gigabit Ethernet fiber connection. Large file transfers fail, but small transfers succeed. What is the most likely cause?
25Which of the following best describes the function of a default gateway?
26A network switch is experiencing a high number of collisions on a specific port. The connected device is configured for half-duplex. Which of the following is the most likely cause?
27A router has two routes to the same destination network: one learned via OSPF with a metric of 10, and another learned via EIGRP with a composite metric of 3072. The default administrative distances are OSPF=110, EIGRP=90. Which route will be installed in the routing table?
28A network engineer wants to segment a LAN into multiple broadcast domains without purchasing additional hardware. Which of the following technologies should be implemented?
29A network administrator needs to ensure that data sent from a host arrives at the correct destination on a different network. Which of the following provides the logical address used for this purpose in IPv4?
30A network technician is configuring a small office network with two subnets: 10.0.1.0/24 and 10.0.2.0/24. Each subnet has its own switch, and both switches are connected to a router with interfaces 10.0.1.1 and 10.0.2.1. Hosts on subnet A can ping the router's interface in their subnet but cannot ping hosts on subnet B. Which of the following is the most likely cause?
31Which of the following devices operates at Layer 3 of the OSI model and makes forwarding decisions based on destination IP addresses?
32Which of the following is the primary function of a subnet mask in IPv4 networking?
33Which of the following uniquely identifies a hardware network interface on a device?
34At which layer of the OSI model does a network device encapsulate data into frames and add source and destination MAC addresses?
35Which protocol is used to resolve a known IP address to a corresponding MAC address on a local network?
36Which of the following is a characteristic of a Layer 2 network switch?
37Which layer of the OSI model is responsible for logical addressing and routing of packets between networks?
38Which of the following IP addresses is a private IP address as defined by RFC 1918?
39A network engineer is configuring IPv6 on a router interface. Which of the following is a valid global unicast IPv6 address?
40In a network, a collision domain is a network segment where which of the following is true?
41At which layer of the OSI model does a device provide flow control, error detection, and recovery for end-to-end communication?
42Which of the following network protocols operates at the Transport layer of the OSI model and provides connection-oriented, reliable data delivery?
43An IPv6 address has the prefix 2001:db8::/32. Which of the following IP addresses belongs to the same prefix?
44Which of the following describes a unicast transmission?
45Which of the following IPv6 addresses is a valid link-local address?
46Which of the following describes the purpose of a default gateway on a host in a TCP/IP network?
47A network technician is explaining the function of a default gateway to a junior technician. Which of the following best describes the purpose of a default gateway?
48In the OSI model, which layer is responsible for establishing, managing, and terminating sessions between applications, as well as providing checkpoints and recovery?
49A network administrator is configuring IP addresses for a new subnet. The network address is 192.168.1.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.240. How many usable host addresses are available on this subnet?
50A network technician is explaining the role of a network switch to a new employee. Which of the following best describes the primary function of a switch in a local area network?
51A network engineer is reviewing RFC 1918 address ranges to plan a private IP addressing scheme. Which of the following IP addresses falls within the private address space for Class A?
52An engineer is configuring a network and needs to understand the default behavior of an IPv6 node. When an IPv6 interface is initialized, which type of address is automatically assigned without any configuration server?
53Which of the following best describes the primary function of a subnet mask in IPv4 networking?
54Which of the following IPv6 addresses is a link-local address?
55A network technician is reviewing the OSI model to understand how data is encapsulated when a web request is sent from a client to a server. At which layer does the web browser's HTTP request data get encapsulated with a TCP segment header?
56A network technician is explaining the difference between TCP and UDP to a junior technician. Which of the following correctly identifies a characteristic of TCP but NOT of UDP?
57A network technician is explaining network segmentation to a junior technician. Which of the following devices increases the number of collision domains but does not increase the number of broadcast domains?
58A network technician is explaining the process of resolving Layer 2 addresses to Layer 3 addresses on a local network. Which protocol is used by a host to determine the MAC address of another host given its IP address?
59A network engineer is explaining to a manager why wireless networks often have lower throughput than wired Ethernet. Which of the following best describes the primary reason for this difference?
60A network engineer needs to create subnets for four departments, each requiring at least 50 host addresses. The available network is 192.168.1.0/24. Which subnet mask should be used to satisfy the requirements while minimizing wasted addresses?
61Which of the following best describes the primary function of the transport layer in the OSI model?
62A network engineer is designing a subnet to accommodate 50 devices in a single broadcast domain. The engineer uses a /26 subnet mask. How many usable host addresses are available?
63A network technician is explaining the difference between connection-oriented and connectionless protocols to a junior technician. Which of the following protocols is connectionless at the transport layer?
64A network engineer is designing a network for a large organization. The engineer needs to ensure that broadcast traffic from one VLAN does not propagate to other VLANs while still allowing inter-VLAN communication. Which of the following devices is required to route between VLANs?
65Which of the following best describes the purpose of the TCP three-way handshake?
66Which of the following best describes the function of a default gateway on a host?
67Which of the following best describes the primary difference between a hub and a switch?
68At which layer of the OSI model does end-to-end communication and data segmentation occur?
69At which layer of the OSI model does logical addressing (e.g., IP addresses) and routing occur?
70Which of the following network devices operates at Layer 1 of the OSI model and forwards all incoming electrical signals to all of its ports?
71A network administrator wants to automate IP address assignment for client devices. Which protocol should be used?
72Which device is used to connect two different network segments and makes forwarding decisions based on IP addresses?
73Which transport layer protocol is used by VoIP and streaming video because it provides low latency and does not require retransmission?
74A client obtains an IP address from a DHCP server but cannot resolve hostnames. The client can ping the default gateway and external IP addresses successfully. What is the most likely cause?
75Which IPv6 address type is used for one-to-many communication and is similar to an IPv4 multicast address?
76A client and server are establishing a TCP connection. The client sends a SYN segment to the server. The server responds with a SYN-ACK segment. What is the next segment in the handshake?
77Which of the following network devices operates primarily at Layer 2 of the OSI model and uses MAC addresses to forward data?
78Which of the following network topologies connects each node to exactly two other nodes, forming a closed loop?
79At which layer of the OSI model does a switch that uses MAC addresses to forward frames operate?
80Which of the following is a characteristic of a connectionless protocol at the transport layer?
81Which IPv6 address is reserved for loopback?
82Which of the following is a characteristic of a Layer 2 broadcast domain?
83A network switch forwards frames based on which address?
84Which of the following best describes a broadcast domain?
85A network administrator is designing a small office network with 40 workstations. The design must ensure that a single cable failure only affects the connected workstation. Which logical topology should the administrator implement?
86At which OSI layer does a router primarily operate to make forwarding decisions based on IP addresses?
87Which device operates at Layer 1 (Physical) of the OSI model and regenerates electrical signals to extend the distance of a network segment?
88A network administrator has configured a switch with four VLANs: VLAN 10, 20, 30, and 99 (native). The switch is connected to a router via an 802.1Q trunk link. The router has subinterfaces for VLANs 10, 20, and 30, each with an IP address. VLAN 99 is used for management and does not have a router subinterface. How many Layer 3 broadcast domains exist in this network?
89A workstation with IP address 10.0.1.5/24 needs to communicate with a server at 10.0.2.10/24. The workstation's default gateway is configured as 10.0.1.1. Which of the following will the workstation do with the IP packets destined for the server?
90A network administrator needs to connect 10 workstations in a way that each workstation's traffic does not collide with others. Which device should be used to connect these workstations?
91Which of the following network topologies provides the highest level of redundancy and fault tolerance?
92Which of the following protocols is used to automatically assign IP addresses to devices on a network and also provides the subnet mask and default gateway?
93A network switch that forwards frames based on MAC addresses operates at which layer of the OSI model?
94A network has a single switch with VLANs 10, 20, and 30 configured. The switch is connected to a router that has three subinterfaces, each in a different VLAN. How many broadcast domains are present?
95Which of the following is a characteristic of UDP?
96A network administrator wants to logically segment a single physical switch into multiple separate broadcast domains without purchasing additional hardware. Which concept should be used?
97At which layer of the OSI model does the conversion of data frames into electrical signals for transmission occur?
98A junior network technician asks which device operates at Layer 2 of the OSI model and uses MAC addresses to forward frames. Which device is the technician describing?
99Which network topology connects all devices to a central device?
100A network technician is analyzing a small office network topology. An 8-port switch has 7 workstations directly connected. The remaining switch port is connected to a 4-port hub, which has 4 workstations attached. All devices are configured on the same VLAN and IP subnet. How many collision domains and broadcast domains are present in this network?
Watch out for
Common Networking Concepts exam traps
- ▸Answering from memory before reading the full scenario.
- ▸Missing a constraint such as cost, availability, security, scope or command context.
- ▸Choosing a broad answer when the question asks for the most specific fix.
- ▸Ignoring why the wrong options are tempting.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the Networking Concepts domain cover on the N10-009 exam?
- Networking Concepts questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.
- How many questions are in this domain?
- This page lists all 100 Networking Concepts questions in the N10-009 question bank. The actual exam draws from this domain proportionally to its weighting in the official exam blueprint.
- What is the best way to practise this domain?
- Start with a short focused session (10 questions) to identify gaps, then use the interactive practice page to work through explanations. Repeat with a longer session once the weak areas feel solid.
- Can I practise only Networking Concepts questions?
- Yes — the session launcher on this page filters questions to this domain only. Choose any session length or try the interactive practice page for inline explanations.