Practice for the CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1201) exam with 21 exam-style practice questions, instant answer reveals, and concise explanations of every correct answer. Topics include: IPv4 addresses are written using Base 10 numbers, while IPv6 addresses are written in Base 16 numbers. What type of nota. Follow @CertPunch and visit certpunch.com for more certification practice exams and study content.
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What you will practice
- IPv4 addresses are written using Base 10 numbers, while IPv6 addresses are written in Base 16 numbers. What t…
- An eSports participant wants to build a custom computer system that is extremely fast but also operates quiet…
- Rick has just received a new Google Pixel smartphone and installed all of his favorite apps, including a diff…
- A software company develops a customer relationship management (CRM) application that they want to offer to m…
- Your company has two office buildings that are connected via a copper network cable that is buried undergroun…
- What type of cloud service provides instant access to servers and switches, is quickly provisioned, and is av…
Answers and explanations
Tap a question to expand the answer and the exam reasoning. Try to commit to your own pick first.
Q1. IPv4 addresses are written using Base 10 numbers, while IPv6 addresses are written in Base 16 numbers. What type of notation does Base16 utilize?
Answer: D. Hexadecimal
Base 16 notation utilizes hexadecimal format, which uses the numbers zero through nine and letters A through F. IPv4 addresses and subnet masks use decimal format, while MAC addresses and IPv6 addresses rely on hexadecimal.
Q2. An eSports participant wants to build a custom computer system that is extremely fast but also operates quietly. Which of the following options should they install as their cooling mechanism?
Answer: C. Liquid cooling
Liquid cooling is extremely efficient at removing heat while remaining relatively quiet for high-performance gaming systems. Passive cooling and heat sinks cannot dissipate enough heat for these systems, and multiple case fans generate excessive noise.
Q3. Rick has just received a new Google Pixel smartphone and installed all of his favorite apps, including a different style virtual keyboard. After about 6 months of use, he noticed that the smartphone has become slow, and the virtual keyboar…
Answer: D. Close and restart the virtual keyboard app
Closing and restarting the unresponsive app is the first and least disruptive step to clear temporary software locks. Factory resets, soft resets, and clearing the system cache are more aggressive steps that should only be tried if restarting the app fails.
Q4. A software company develops a customer relationship management (CRM) application that they want to offer to multiple businesses as a subscription service. Each business needs their own separate customer data, user accounts, and customized…
Answer: D. Multitenancy architecture
Multitenancy architecture allows multiple customers to securely share the same application infrastructure while keeping their data logically isolated. This deployment model reduces infrastructure costs significantly compared to private clouds or edge computing distribution.
Q5. Your company has two office buildings that are connected via a copper network cable that is buried underground. There is some construction being performed near the buildings. Now, the second building discovers they have suffered a network…
Answer: C. An open circuit has been created
An open circuit is the most likely cause because construction digging often severs buried network cables, leading to a permanent outage. Signal attenuation, cross-talk, and electromagnetic interference typically cause intermittent connectivity or degraded speeds rather than a complete physical disconnection.
Q6. What type of cloud service provides instant access to servers and switches, is quickly provisioned, and is available for management over the internet?
Answer: A. IaaS
Infrastructure as a service provides instant access to foundational computing resources like servers and switches. IaaS allows quick provisioning over the internet, whereas SaaS, PaaS, and DaaS deliver finished applications, development environments, and virtual desktops.
Q7. Dion Training's office uses a shared networked printer that is accessed via a print server. Tamera attempted to print 3 documents to the printer. After the first document printed, the printer stopped printing, and the other two documents n…
Answer: D. Clear the print queue on the print server
When a network printer stalls after a failed job, clearing the print queue on the print server is the best first step to resume printing. Restarting the workstation or updating drivers will not clear a stuck server queue.
Q8. A technician at Dion Training is troubleshooting an issue with a workstation. The technician believes that the CMOS battery needs to be replaced based on the symptoms they observed. Which of the following symptoms did the technician likely…
Answer: A. Incorrect date/time on the workstation
An incorrect system date and time at startup is the classic symptom of a failed CMOS battery. A burning smell indicates a failing power supply, distended capacitors indicate motherboard damage, and continuous reboots usually point to memory or hardware faults.
Q9. Which of the following wireless networking technologies is commonly used to connect a mouse to a laptop to create a PAN?
Answer: B. Bluetooth
Bluetooth is the standard wireless technology used to connect close-range peripherals like a mouse and create a personal area network. Wi-Fi covers larger local networks, NFC requires extremely close proximity, and microwave is used for long-range wireless links.
Q10. Which type of cloud service provides users with an end-to-end application solution for a recurring monthly or yearly fee?
Answer: D. SaaS
Software as a service provides end users with fully managed applications over the internet for a recurring fee. IaaS provides virtual infrastructure, PaaS provides development platforms, and DaaS provides virtual desktop environments.
Q11. Which of the following locations are you likely to find the antenna wires located within a laptop or mobile device?
Answer: B. Positioned around the display panel
Wireless and cellular antenna wires are typically routed around the display panel to optimize signal reception. Placing them under the keyboard or on the battery would cause interference, and internal cards rarely use external USB antennas.
Q12. A large media production company stores massive video files on their server and requires maximum fault tolerance because they cannot afford to lose any data. The company needs a storage solution that can survive the simultaneous failure of…
Answer: A. RAID 6
RAID 6 uses dual parity, allowing the array to survive the simultaneous failure of two drives without data loss. RAID 1, 5, and 10 can only tolerate a single drive failure or require specific drive combinations to survive dual failures.
Q13. You just installed an SSD into a laptop to increase the storage speed of the device. Which of the following should you configure to increase the lifespan of the newly installed SSD?
Answer: B. Disable regularly scheduled defragmentation of the SSD
Solid-state drives suffer wear from excessive write cycles, making scheduled defragmentation unnecessary and harmful to their lifespan. Operating systems should use the trim command for optimization instead of traditional magnetic drive defragmentation.
Q14. You connect a VoIP device on a user's desk and need to connect it to a PoE-enabled switch located in a communications closet about 150 feet (approximately 50 meters) away. Which of the following cables should you select to connect the VoIP…
Answer: B. CAT 6
A CAT 6 cable supports both data and Power over Ethernet for the VoIP phone up to 100 meters. Fiber, coaxial, and CAT 3 cables cannot carry the electrical power required by the device over the network link.
Q15. You just heard of a new ransomware attack that has been rapidly spreading across the internet that takes advantage of a vulnerability in the Windows SMB protocol. To protect your network until Microsoft releases a security update, you want…
Answer: B. 445
The Server Message Block protocol uses port 445 for direct TCP IP network sharing. Blocking port 445 at the firewall isolates the network from external SMB traffic and helps prevent the spread of ransomware.
Q16. Which of the following technologies can provide the precise latitude and longitude of a device's location when it is located outdoors?
Answer: D. GPS
The Global Positioning System uses satellite signals to provide precise latitude and longitude coordinates outdoors. Cellular and Wi Fi provide general approximations based on tower triangulation or signal strength.
Q17. You have been asked to set up the corporate email on several mobile devices for Dion Training's employees. The employees will use their mobile devices to send their emails when out of the office. Which of the following mail protocols shoul…
Answer: A. SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is the standard used to send outgoing email messages over the internet. POP3 and IMAP are strictly used for retrieving and receiving messages, while HTTPS secures standard web traffic.
Q18. Which of the following cable types can support speeds of up to 10 Gbps for up to 100 meters?
Answer: D. Cat 6a
Category 6a twisted pair cabling reliably supports 10 Gigabit Ethernet over the full 100 meter distance. Standard Category 6 supports 10 Gbps only up to 55 meters before signal attenuation causes unreliable network performance.
Q19. Which of the following must be enabled on a mobile device to allow internet access when cellular data is unavailable, such as in an airplane?
Answer: C. Wi-Fi
Enabling Wi-Fi allows mobile devices to connect to local wireless networks for internet access when cellular data fails. Bluetooth lacks internet routing capabilities, GPS only provides location services, and SIM locking is a security feature.
Q20. A customer is complaining that their workstation is beginning to run slowly when many applications are opened simultaneously. Which of the following upgrades would you recommend to solve this problem?
Answer: A. Upgrade the system from 4 GB to 16 GB of RAM
Adding more RAM allows the system to keep more applications open simultaneously without relying on slower virtual memory. Upgrading to an HDD would decrease performance, and network cards do not affect local multitasking.
Q21. A network technician is troubleshooting a connectivity issue in a small office. After testing, they find that one Ethernet port in a wall jack is not working. Upon inspecting the punchdown block, the technician notices that one of the wire…
Answer: C. Place the loose wire back into its correct slot and firmly press it into place with the punchdown tool
A punchdown tool firmly seats the wire into its slot, cutting the insulation and securing it to the metal contacts. Twisting or stripping wires manually is incorrect, and replacing the block is unnecessary.
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