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220-1201 Practice Question: A customer reports that their laptop can connect…
A customer reports that their laptop can connect to the internet at home but not at a coffee shop. The coffee shop uses a /24 subnet with a gateway of 192.168.1.1. The laptop's IP is 192.168.2.10. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
The 220-1201 exam often tests the concept that a device can associate with a Wi-Fi network (Layer 2) but still fail to communicate at Layer 3 if its IP address is not in the same subnet as the gateway, leading candidates to incorrectly suspect DNS or hardware issues.
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
✓
The laptop's IP address is on a different subnet than the coffee shop's network.
The coffee shop's network uses a /24 subnet (255.255.255.0), which means all devices must have an IP address in the 192.168.1.0/24 range to communicate with the gateway at 192.168.1.1. The laptop's IP address of 192.168.2.10 falls in a different subnet (192.168.2.0/24), so the laptop cannot send frames to the gateway or receive a DHCP lease, preventing internet access despite a successful Wi-Fi association.
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 DNS server address is incorrect.
Why it's wrong here
An incorrect DNS server address would prevent the laptop from resolving domain names to IP addresses, meaning it couldn't access websites by name. However, the problem states the laptop cannot even reach the gateway, which is an issue of basic IP connectivity within the local network. DNS only comes into play after successful communication with the gateway and beyond the local subnet, making this a secondary concern to the fundamental connectivity failure.
- ✓
The laptop's IP address is on a different subnet than the coffee shop's network.
Why this is correct
If the laptop's IP address (e.g., 192.168.2.10) belongs to a different subnet than the coffee shop's network (e.g., 192.168.1.0/24), it cannot directly communicate with the coffee shop's gateway. Devices on different IP subnets require a router to forward traffic between them. The laptop, believing the gateway is on its *local* subnet, will attempt to send ARP requests for it, which will fail because the gateway is not physically present on the 192.168.2.0 network segment.
- ✗
The wireless card is faulty.
Why it's wrong here
A faulty wireless card would prevent the laptop from connecting to *any* Wi-Fi network, including the one at home. Since the laptop functions correctly on its home network, the wireless adapter itself is operational. The problem is specific to connecting at the coffee shop, indicating a configuration or network-specific issue rather than a hardware malfunction that would affect all wireless connections.
- ✗
The subnet mask is set to 255.0.0.0.
Why it's wrong here
Setting the subnet mask to 255.0.0.0 (a /8 mask) would cause the laptop to perceive its local network as a much larger range, encompassing all IP addresses from 192.0.0.1 to 192.255.255.254. While this is an incorrect configuration, the primary issue preventing gateway communication is the laptop's IP address being in a completely different *network segment* (e.g., 192.168.2.x) than the coffee shop's gateway (e.192.168.1.x), regardless of how broadly the laptop defines its local network.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 220-1201 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 220-1201 exam.