Practice for the CCNA exam with 23 exam-style practice questions, instant answer reveals, and concise explanations of every correct answer. Topics include: How does MAC learning function on a switch?. Follow @CertPunch and visit certpunch.com for more certification practice exams and study content.
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What you will practice
- How does MAC learning function on a switch?
- Which implementation provides the strongest encryption combination for the wireless environment?
- What is the default interface for in-band wireless network management on a WLC?
- What is a purpose of traffic shaping?
- Which network allows devices to communicate without the need to access the Internet?
- Which IPv6 address type provides communication between subnets and cannot route on the Internet?
Answers and explanations
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Q1. How does MAC learning function on a switch?
Answer: C. adds unknown source MAC addresses to the address table
MAC learning occurs when a switch dynamically examines the source MAC address of an incoming frame and records it in the MAC address table. This process maps the address to the specific ingress port and VLAN to enable accurate frame forwarding.
Q2. Which implementation provides the strongest encryption combination for the wireless environment?
Answer: D. WPA2 + AES
WPA2 with AES provides the strongest encryption combination by using the Advanced Encryption Standard for robust data confidentiality. Older protocols like WEP or WPA with TKIP are legacy standards with known vulnerabilities and should be avoided.
Q3. What is the default interface for in-band wireless network management on a WLC?
Answer: D. wireless management
The wireless management interface serves as the default in-band management interface for Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers. It handles management traffic and CAPWAP control communications, distinguishing it from the out-of-band service port.
Q4. What is a purpose of traffic shaping?
Answer: D. It regulates the rate of traffic by buffering and smoothing bursts.
Traffic shaping regulates data transmission speeds by buffering excess packets to smooth out network bursts. This differs from traffic policing, which avoids queuing delays by immediately dropping packets that exceed the configured rate limit.
Q5. Which network allows devices to communicate without the need to access the Internet?
Answer: B. 172.28.0.0/16
RFC 1918 private IPv4 addresses allow internal devices to communicate without internet routing. The 172.28 network falls within the private 172.16 range, whereas the other options are public addresses.
Q6. Which IPv6 address type provides communication between subnets and cannot route on the Internet?
Answer: B. unique local
Unique local IPv6 addresses are designed for internal routing across multiple subnets without internet routability. Link-local traffic stays on the local subnet, and global unicast addresses route publicly.
Q7. What will happen if you configure the logging trap debug command on a router?
Answer: C. It causes the router to send all messages to the syslog server
The logging trap debug command sets the syslog severity threshold to level seven, capturing all messages from zero to seven. Because debug is the lowest severity, the router forwards every syslog message to the server.
Q8. In an SDN architecture, which function of a network node is centralized on a controller?
Answer: C. Makes a routing decision
Software-Defined Networking centralizes the control plane by moving routing decisions to the SDN controller. Individual network nodes simply act as data plane devices, forwarding traffic based on controller-programmed flow tables.
Q9. When more than one AP-Manager interface is provisioned on a wireless LAN controller, how is the request handled by the AP?
Answer: C. The AP-Manager with the fewest number of APs is used by the AP to join.
When multiple AP-Manager interfaces exist, the controller balances the load by assigning the access point to the one with the fewest joined devices. This ensures optimal controller resource utilization across the network.
Q10. Which type of IPv4 address type helps to conserve the globally unique address classes?
Answer: C. private
Private IPv4 addresses conserve globally unique public addresses by allowing internal reuse. Combined with network address translation, organizations can connect many private devices using just a few public IP addresses.
Q11. Which statement is a fact related to FTP?
Answer: A. It uses two separate connections for control and data traffic.
File Transfer Protocol uses two separate TCP connections for control and data traffic. The control connection manages commands, while the data connection transfers files. Distractors describing UDP port 69 or no authentication actually apply to TFTP.
Q12. A network administrator needs to aggregate 4 ports into a single logical link which must negotiate layer 2 connectivity to ports on another switch. What must be configured when using active mode on both sides of the connection?
Answer: B. LACP
Link Aggregation Control Protocol is required to dynamically negotiate EtherChannel bundles when interfaces are placed in active mode. Cisco virtual PortChannel is a Nexus feature, while 802.1Q provides VLAN tagging rather than link negotiation.
Q13. How does a hub handle a frame traveling to a known destination MAC address differently than a switch?
Answer: A. The hub forwards the frame to all ports, and a switch forwards the frame to the known destination.
A hub operates at Layer 1 and simply repeats incoming electrical signals to all other ports, ignoring MAC addresses. A switch operates at Layer 2 and selectively forwards frames out the specific destination port based on its MAC address table.
Q14. Which technique can you use to route IPv6 traffic over an IPv4 infrastructure?
Answer: B. 6 to 4 tunneling
Six to four tunneling encapsulates IPv6 packets inside IPv4 packets, allowing IPv6 traffic to traverse an IPv4 network. Dual-stack is incorrect because it requires both protocols to run natively rather than tunneling one over the other.
Q15. Which technology is appropriate for communication between an SDN controller and applications running over the network?
Answer: B. REST API
A REST API is commonly used as a northbound interface in SDN architectures, enabling communication between the controller and applications. Southbound APIs like OpenFlow are incorrect because they communicate downward with network devices instead of upward with applications.
Q16. Which command should you enter to configure an LLDP delay time of 5 seconds?
Answer: D. lldp reinit 5
The LLDP reinit command sets the reinitialization delay to five seconds, specifying the wait time before LLDP initializes on an interface. The timer and holdtime commands are incorrect because they control update frequency and cache retention rather than the initialization delay.
Q17. Which of the following is the JSON encoding of a dictionary or hash?
Answer: A. { "key": "value" }
In JSON, a dictionary or hash is represented using curly braces with key-value pairs. The bracket syntax is incorrect because it represents an array, which is an ordered list of values rather than a mapped collection of keys and values.
Q18. A network engineer is asked to configure VLANs 2, 3, and 4 for a new implementation. Some ports must be assigned to the new VLANs with unused ports remaining. Which action should be taken for the unused ports?
Answer: C. configure ports in a black hole VLAN
Unused ports should be assigned to an unused black hole VLAN to isolate them from production traffic completely. Avoid the native VLAN because default configurations leave it vulnerable to management access and tagging exploits.
Q19. Which IPsec transport mode encrypts the IP header and the payload?
Answer: D. tunnel
IPsec tunnel mode encrypts the entire original IP packet, including the original header and payload, before encapsulating it with a new header. Transport mode leaves the original IP header exposed, which makes it suitable only for host-to-host connections.
Q20. What causes a port to be placed in the err-disabled state?
Answer: B. port security violation
A port security violation triggers the error-disabled state as a protective mechanism to block unauthorized access. A standard shutdown command administratively disables an interface, while an empty port or latency simply results in a down or degraded status.
Q21. What is the purpose of traffic shaping?
Answer: D. to limit the bandwidth that a flow can use
Traffic shaping limits the bandwidth of a flow by buffering excess packets to enforce a steady transmission rate. Unlike policing, which drops or marks excess traffic immediately, shaping actively delays packets to smooth out network bursts.
Q22. Which statement describes the purpose of VRRP?
Answer: A. allows two or more routers to act as a default gateway
VRRP allows multiple routers to share a virtual IP address to act as a single default gateway for high availability. It is an open standard protocol, which effectively eliminates the proprietary distractor, and it relies on a configured virtual IP rather than dynamic assignment.
Q23. A wireless administrator has configured a WLAN; however, the clients need access to a less congested 5-GHz network for their voice quality. Which action must be taken to meet the requirement?
Answer: A. enable Band Select
Band Select steers dual-band clients away from the congested 2.4-GHz band by delaying probe responses. The other options manage power, multicast delivery, or authentication rather than frequency steering.
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