Practice for the CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1201) exam with 18 exam-style practice questions, instant answer reveals, and concise explanations of every correct answer. Topics include: You just bought a new Virtual Reality headset to use with your computer. To ensure your computer is ready to support the. Follow @CertPunch and visit certpunch.com for more certification practice exams and study content.
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What you will practice
- You just bought a new Virtual Reality headset to use with your computer. To ensure your computer is ready to…
- An employee complains that every time airplane mode is enabled on their laptop, their external mouse and head…
- Eleanor, a user, contacts the help desk to report that her workstation will not boot up this morning. The hel…
- What is the primary purpose of a punchdown tool in networking?
- You are installing a new projector in a customer's home theater room. After connecting the projector and powe…
- A company is using a cloud storage service to back up its data. The IT administrator notices an unexpected in…
Answers and explanations
Tap a question to expand the answer and the exam reasoning. Try to commit to your own pick first.
Q1. You just bought a new Virtual Reality headset to use with your computer. To ensure your computer is ready to support the new VR games, which of the following should you install?
Answer: A. A dedicated graphics card
Virtual reality applications demand intense graphical processing power to render dual high resolution displays smoothly. Installing a dedicated graphics card provides the necessary graphics processing unit horsepower to prevent lag and motion sickness.
Q2. An employee complains that every time airplane mode is enabled on their laptop, their external mouse and headphones stop working. Which of the following technologies is being disabled by airplane mode and likely causing the issues experien…
Answer: A. Bluetooth
Airplane mode disables all wireless radios, including Bluetooth, which connects peripherals like external mice and wireless headphones. While Wi-Fi is also disabled, mice and headphones rely specifically on Bluetooth technology for connectivity.
Q3. Eleanor, a user, contacts the help desk to report that her workstation will not boot up this morning. The help desk technician verifies that the workstation's memory, power supply, and monitor function properly. The technician believes tha…
Answer: B. No boot device available
A missing boot device error indicates the motherboard cannot locate the hard drive during initialization. While missing operating system errors also occur, they usually appear after the drive is detected.
Q4. What is the primary purpose of a punchdown tool in networking?
Answer: B. To secure and trim wires into a punchdown block
A punchdown tool secures wires into insulation displacement connectors on a patch panel or block. Stripping requires a wire stripper, terminating ends requires a crimper, and testing requires a certifier.
Q5. You are installing a new projector in a customer's home theater room. After connecting the projector and powering it on, you notice some odd debris displayed on the screen. Which of the following should you do to correct this?
Answer: B. Clean artifacts on the protective glass
Debris on a projected image indicates dust or dirt on the protective glass or lens. Cleaning the protective glass is the cheapest initial fix, whereas degaussing applies only to CRT displays.
Q6. A company is using a cloud storage service to back up its data. The IT administrator notices an unexpected increase in the monthly bill. After reviewing the usage report, they find high charges for egress traffic. What does "egress traffic…
Answer: C. Data transferred out of the cloud service to external systems
Egress traffic consists of data transferred out of a cloud provider to external networks. Ingress is inbound data, storage involves disk space, and internal traffic stays within the cloud.
Q7. What is the primary function of a proxy server in a network?
Answer: D. To filter and control internet access for clients
A proxy server acts as an intermediary between clients and the internet, providing content filtering and access control. Mail servers handle email, web servers host sites, and NTP servers synchronize clocks, which eliminates those distractors.
Q8. You have just installed a second monitor for a salesperson's workstation. After cloning displays to two monitors, the second monitor shows text twice as large. Which of the following settings should you configure?
Answer: D. Resolution
Display resolution determines the pixel density and directly affects the size of text and icons on the screen. Refresh rate affects image flicker, color depth affects visible colors, and extended mode changes the desktop layout rather than the sizing.
Q9. A computer technician received a complaint from a client about an issue with their laptop. Based on the symptoms observed, the technician believes there is an issue with the laptop's memory. Which of the following symptoms was MOST likely…
Answer: C. Continuous reboots
Faulty system memory commonly causes continuous unexpected reboots and random application crashes during operation. POST code beeps are also a strong memory indicator, but continuous reboots specifically point to an operating system struggling with bad RAM.
Q10. You are working as a technician for a college. One of the professors has submitted a trouble ticket stating that the projector connected to the workstation in his classroom is too dim. You look at the image being projected on the wall and…
Answer: B. Increase the contrast on the projector
Troubleshooting theory requires checking settings before replacing hardware. The trap is replacing the bulb, but you should adjust brightness or contrast first because it is a quick non-invasive step.
Q11. A laptop has only one USB port, but the user wants to connect a USB mouse, keyboard, and webcam. The user has a budget of $20. Which of the following should be purchased?
Answer: C. USB 4-port hub
A USB hub expands a single USB port into multiple ports, allowing several peripherals to connect simultaneously. Docking stations and port replicators are more expensive solutions designed for full desktop feature expansion rather than simple low cost connectivity.
Q12. A penetration tester wants to build a workstation that will be used to brute-force hash digests. Which of the following is the BEST option to ensure sufficient power and speed to crack them?
Answer: A. Dedicated GPU
Dedicated graphics processing units excel at parallel processing, making them incredibly fast at cracking hashes and brute forcing passwords. Multi core CPUs and integrated graphics lack the specialized parallel compute power required for these mathematically intensive tasks.
Q13. A customer's Android smartphone is only 6 months old but is becoming excessively slow. When questioned, the customer states it was acting fine until they recently installed a new stock market tracking app. What action should you take to tr…
Answer: D. Uninstall the app, reboot the phone, and reinstall the app
When a device experiences sudden performance issues immediately after a new application is installed, the newly installed software is the most probable cause. Uninstalling the application, rebooting the phone, and reinstalling it can isolate or resolve any corrupted files.
Q14. You are currently conducting passive reconnaissance in preparation for an upcoming penetration test against Dion Training. You are reviewing the DNS records for the company and are trying to identify which server is their authoritative DNS…
Answer: A. NS
An NS record identifies the authoritative name server for a given domain. MX records point to mail servers, TXT records hold text data, and SRV records define specific service ports.
Q15. You have just installed a new hard disk drive into your computer, but the motherboard does not recognize it within the BIOS/UEFI. You have verified the drive is properly connected to the motherboard and the power supply with the correct ca…
Answer: A. Update the firmware of the motherboard
When a newly installed drive is physically connected but not visible in the BIOS or UEFI, updating the motherboard firmware is the best next step. Formatting or configuring RAID is impossible until the drive is detected by the system.
Q16. Which of the following hard drive form factors would support a 15,000 RPM hard drive for use in a desktop computer with a SATA connector?
Answer: A. 3.5"
The 3.5-inch form factor is the standard physical size for high-performance desktop hard drives. While 15,000 RPM drives were traditionally enterprise SAS drives, a 3.5-inch chassis is required for high-speed spinning drives in a desktop environment.
Q17. Which of the following types of hard disk drives would be installed in a low-end office desktop?
Answer: C. 5400 rpm
A 5400 RPM drive is commonly used in budget desktops to reduce cost. Drives with 7200 RPM or higher are performance distractors.
Q18. Your boss has requested that you replace all of the hubs in the network with switches. What is the MOST likely reason for doing this?
Answer: C. Using hubs causes too many collisions on the network
Hubs operate within a single shared collision domain, causing excessive network collisions that severely degrade performance. Switches eliminate this issue by providing dedicated bandwidth to each port, making performance the primary reason for this upgrade.
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