Practice for the CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1201) exam with 22 exam-style practice questions, instant answer reveals, and concise explanations of every correct answer. Topics include: Peter is attempting to print to his office printer, but nothing comes out. Yesterday, his printer was working just fine.. Follow @CertPunch and visit certpunch.com for more certification practice exams and study content.
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What you will practice
- Peter is attempting to print to his office printer, but nothing comes out. Yesterday, his printer was working…
- Jason is building a new gaming computer for his son. Jason has calculated that the required wattage needed is…
- A user is experiencing intermittent connectivity issues with their wireless network. Which of the following t…
- What type of cloud service is Microsoft 365, providing users with a variety of software that is accessed and…
- What is used to distribute traffic across multiple sets of devices or connections to increase the overall eff…
- Which of the following parts is responsible for converting the analog signals created by your tapping or swip…
Answers and explanations
Tap a question to expand the answer and the exam reasoning. Try to commit to your own pick first.
Q1. Peter is attempting to print to his office printer, but nothing comes out. Yesterday, his printer was working just fine. Peter does not notice any errors on the taskbar's printer icon. Which of the following actions should Peter try FIRST…
Answer: C. Check the status of the print server queue
Checking the print server queue should be the first step because silent printing failures often indicate a stuck job. Changing the default printer or toggling offline mode assumes a configuration error rather than a stalled spooler.
Q2. Jason is building a new gaming computer for his son. Jason has calculated that the required wattage needed is 420 watts for the video card and all of the other internal devices. Which of the following power supplies should Jason purchase t…
Answer: A. 525 W
A power supply must provide sufficient wattage to handle the maximum load of all internal components safely. Units rated below the requirement will fail to power the system, while higher ratings provide safe overhead.
Q3. A user is experiencing intermittent connectivity issues with their wireless network. Which of the following tools would be the BEST choice to identify signal strength and interference in the area?
Answer: D. Wi-Fi analyzer
A Wi-Fi analyzer is the best tool for measuring signal strength, identifying interference, and optimizing channel usage. Cable testers, loopback plugs, and toner probes are designed for physical wired connections rather than wireless diagnostics.
Q4. What type of cloud service is Microsoft 365, providing users with a variety of software that is accessed and used through a browser without the need of having it installed on user's devices?
Answer: C. SaaS
Microsoft 365 is classified as Software as a Service because the software is accessed via a browser without local installation. DaaS provides a full virtual desktop, while IaaS and PaaS deliver infrastructure and development platforms rather than end-user applications.
Q5. What is used to distribute traffic across multiple sets of devices or connections to increase the overall efficiency of the network and its data processing?
Answer: B. Load balancing
Load balancing distributes network traffic across multiple servers to optimize response time and prevent overloading. Traffic shaping prioritizes specific data, while high availability and fault tolerance ensure continuous operation during failures.
Q6. Which of the following parts is responsible for converting the analog signals created by your tapping or swiping the surface of a display to a binary signal that is understood by the underlying software?
Answer: C. Digitizer
A digitizer is a touch-sensitive panel that converts analog touch events into digital signals for the operating system. Backlights and inverters only manage display illumination, and capacitors regulate electrical voltage.
Q7. A computer technician is replacing a failed power supply in a customer's gaming workstation that contains multiple hard drives and a dedicated graphics card. Which of the following are the two most important things for the technician to co…
Answer: A,B. Wattage rating || Number and type of connectors
The technician must select a power supply with a high enough wattage rating and the correct number and type of connectors. Gaming workstations with dedicated graphics cards and multiple drives require significant power and specialized PCIe and SATA power connectors.
Q8. Which of the following is categorized as a private IP address?
Answer: D. 172.30.15.12
The IP address 172.30.15.12 falls within the private Class B range of 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255. The 169.254 range is reserved for APIPA, while the others are valid public IP addresses.
Q9. William would like to use full-disk encryption on his laptop. He is worried about slow performance, though, so he has requested that the laptop have an onboard hardware-based cryptographic processor. Based on this requirement, what should…
Answer: C. TPM
A Trusted Platform Module, or TPM, is a motherboard component that accelerates cryptographic processing and securely stores encryption keys. AES is an algorithm, full disk encryption is a feature, and PAM is an authentication module.
Q10. Jason connects his laptop to his iPhone over Wi-Fi to access the Internet using the phone's cellular connection for an in-class demonstration. Which term best describes this configuration?
Answer: C. Hotspot
A mobile hotspot uses wireless connectivity to share a smartphone's cellular internet connection with nearby devices. USB tethering requires a physical cable, tunneling encapsulates data, and a baseband update involves modem firmware.
Q11. Which connectivity option provides the fastest wired data transfer speeds for mobile devices?
Answer: A. USB-C
USB-C provides the fastest wired data transfer speeds for modern mobile devices, supporting rates up to 10 Gbps or higher. Lightning, USB 2.0, and Micro-USB are older standards with significantly lower maximum speeds.
Q12. Which of the following describes the IP address of a router to which packets destined for a remote network should be sent by default?
Answer: C. Gateway
The default gateway is the router's IP address that forwards traffic destined for remote networks outside the local area network. Static and dynamic IPs identify the host, while the subnet mask determines the network boundary.
Q13. You have been asked to recommend a RAID for use in a video editing workstation. The workstation must be configured to allow the highest speed operation and use 100% of the available drive free space. The workstation has no requirement for…
Answer: A. RAID 0
RAID 0 uses disk striping to provide maximum performance and full utilization of available drive space without redundancy. RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 all introduce fault tolerance, which consumes storage capacity and limits speeds.
Q14. What type of expansion bus technology uses lanes with point-to-point communication paths between two components on the motherboard?
Answer: A. PCIe
PCI Express, or PCIe, uses dedicated lanes for point-to-point serial communication between components. AGP, PCI, and PCI-X are older parallel bus technologies that share bandwidth across multiple connected devices.
Q15. A new laptop displays 'IP address conflict with another system on the network.' What should you do to resolve this error?
Answer: C. Configure the laptop's network connection to use DHCP instead of a static IP
Switching the laptop to use DHCP allows the network's server to automatically assign a valid, non-conflicting IP address. Manually choosing a new static IP risks future conflicts, and replacing a working adapter ignores the configuration error.
Q16. You are troubleshooting a workstation for a customer. The workstation will not boot. When it is powered on, an error message of "OS not found" is displayed on the screen. What is the MOST likely solution to fix this error?
Answer: A. Repair the MBR
An operating system not found error often indicates a corrupted Master Boot Record, requiring a repair using recovery tools. Repartitioning destroys data, and replacing drives is unnecessary when boot configuration is the only failure.
Q17. You want to play computer-based video games from anywhere in the world using your laptop or tablet. You heard about a new product called a Shadow PC that is a virtualized Windows 10 Home gaming PC in the cloud. Which of the following best…
Answer: C. DaaS
Desktop as a Service, or DaaS, provides users with a full virtualized desktop environment hosted in the cloud. IaaS provides raw computing infrastructure, PaaS offers development platforms, and SaaS delivers specific software applications.
Q18. A user is complaining about slow data speeds when they are at home in a large apartment building. The user uses Wi-Fi when they get home, and the device works fine on other wireless networks they connect to. Which of the following actions…
Answer: D. Increase the Wi-Fi signal being transmitted by their WAP
Boosting the wireless signal helps overcome interference from neighboring apartments, ensuring the device receives a reliable connection. Upgrading a smartphone is ineffective since the device works elsewhere, and MAC filtering restricts access.
Q19. Which of the following devices combines an accurate geolocation system that communicates with a constellation of 24 satellites continuously during its operation?
Answer: D. GPS
A Global Positioning System device determines its location by receiving signals from an orbiting satellite constellation. Other mobile devices like e-readers and fitness trackers rely on this technology but do not define it.
Q20. A technician is troubleshooting a workstation. The workstation is suffering from intermittent connectivity issues. The technician notices that the STP cable pairs are not completely twisted near the connector. Which of the following issues…
Answer: C. Crosstalk
The twisting of the wire pairs protects against crosstalk, which is signal leakage between adjacent cables. Untwisting the wires near the connector during termination removes this protection, leading to electromagnetic interference and degraded network performance.
Q21. Which of the following is an advantage of devices that use 2.4 GHz frequency instead of the 5.0 GHz frequency?
Answer: C. The 2.4 GHz frequency is more effective at penetrating solid surfaces than 5.0 GHz
The 2.4 GHz frequency band uses a longer wavelength, which makes it more effective at penetrating solid surfaces than 5.0 GHz. While it provides better range, the 5.0 GHz band actually supports higher data rates and experiences less overall interference.
Q22. A client has a new 2-in-1 laptop/tablet. Whenever they use the touchscreen, the cursor appears to jump to the wrong location and select the wrong icons. If the client connects a USB mouse, there are no issues with using the device. Which o…
Answer: C. Recalibrate the touchscreen
A touchscreen registering touches in the wrong locations requires recalibration within the operating system. Driver updates or reinstalling Windows are time consuming steps that should only be attempted if the basic calibration fails to resolve the issue.
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