Practice for the CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1201) exam with 20 exam-style practice questions, instant answer reveals, and concise explanations of every correct answer. Topics include: An IT administrator notices that their cloud-hosted application is running with excessive CPU resources even when user t. Follow @CertPunch and visit certpunch.com for more certification practice exams and study content.
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What you will practice
- An IT administrator notices that their cloud-hosted application is running with excessive CPU resources even…
- You have been asked to troubleshoot a digital projector in the home theater in your neighbor's basement. Your…
- Which of the following components of a laser printer is used to apply an electric charge to the paper so that…
- What is one key characteristic of cloud computing that allows resources to be allocated and deallocated as ne…
- A technician uses a loopback plug to test a faulty Ethernet port on a laptop. After running diagnostic softwa…
- A workstation displays 'bootable device cannot be found.' UEFI doesn't recognize the hard drive, but cables a…
Answers and explanations
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Q1. An IT administrator notices that their cloud-hosted application is running with excessive CPU resources even when user traffic is low, leading to unnecessary costs. How can the administrator use elasticity to resolve this issue?
Answer: C. Configure the system to scale resources down during periods of low usage automatically
Cloud elasticity allows a system to automatically scale computing resources up or down based on current demand. Configuring automatic scaling down during low usage periods optimizes costs without requiring inefficient manual intervention or dedicated hardware.
Q2. You have been asked to troubleshoot a digital projector in the home theater in your neighbor's basement. Your neighbor attempted to replace the projector's bulb, but after running for a few minutes, a message appeared on the screen, and th…
Answer: C,E. The bulb's life counter needs to be reset || The cooling fan needs to be cleaned or replaced
Projectors often require resetting the lamp life counter after a bulb replacement, or they will automatically shut down prematurely. Additionally, an overheating projector caused by a dirty or failing cooling fan will trigger an automatic thermal shutdown to protect the device.
Q3. Which of the following components of a laser printer is used to apply an electric charge to the paper so that the paper attracts toner to it during the imaging process?
Answer: D. Transfer roller
The transfer roller applies a positive electrical charge to the paper to attract the negatively charged toner from the imaging drum. The fuser melts the toner, while pickup rollers and separation pads solely handle the physical feeding of paper sheets.
Q4. What is one key characteristic of cloud computing that allows resources to be allocated and deallocated as needed automatically?
Answer: D. Elasticity
Elasticity allows the cloud to automatically provision or de-provision resources based on real-time demand. Scalability refers to adding permanent capacity, while redundancy focuses on system uptime and fault tolerance.
Q5. A technician uses a loopback plug to test a faulty Ethernet port on a laptop. After running diagnostic software, the tool reports that the port is sending packets but not receiving them. What does this indicate, and what is the next step?
Answer: B. The Ethernet port on the laptop is faulty; replace or repair the port
A failed loopback test directly indicates a physical hardware failure with the laptop's network interface. Since this test isolates the port from external cables and switches, the technician must replace or repair the port.
Q6. A workstation displays 'bootable device cannot be found.' UEFI doesn't recognize the hard drive, but cables are properly connected. What is MOST likely the issue?
Answer: A. The workstation's hard drive is failing
If the system firmware cannot detect the drive, the drive has likely failed physically. An incorrect boot order would still display the drive in firmware, while mixing memory modules is physically impossible.
Q7. Which of the following types of optical discs can support storing a 20 GB file on a single piece of media?
Answer: C. BD-R
A Blu-ray disc provides sufficient storage capacity for a 20 GB file, holding up to 25 GB on a single layer. Standard CDs and DVDs do not offer enough space, while SD cards are flash memory, not optical discs.
Q8. A company wants to order new laptops for their video editors. The video editors want to ensure the display has the best color accuracy when using a 60 Hz refresh rate. Which of the following types of displays should the company purchase to…
Answer: D. IPS
In-plane switching panels offer the best color accuracy and viewing angles for professional video editing. Twisted nematic panels prioritize high refresh rates for gaming but suffer from poor color reproduction, while plasma and vertical alignment panels are not the best choices here.
Q9. Which of the following best explains the characteristics of a Type II hypervisor?
Answer: C. A Type II hypervisor runs within an existing operating system and relies on the host OS to manage hardware resources
A Type 2 hypervisor is software that runs on top of a conventional host operating system. Because it relies on the host operating system for hardware access, it cannot provide the direct bare metal performance of a Type 1 hypervisor.
Q10. Which of the following is NOT a cause of power issues?
Answer: D. Insufficient RAM (memory) installed in the computer system causing the device to fail during startup or operation
Insufficient memory is a resource bottleneck that causes system instability or boot failures, but it does not interrupt electrical power delivery. Faulty power supplies, disconnected power buttons, and bad wall outlets directly disrupt the electrical circuit.
Q11. Which of the following network performance metrics is used to represent variable delay experienced by a client when receiving packets from a sender?
Answer: D. Jitter
Jitter measures the variable delay in packet arrival times across a network. While latency measures overall delay, bandwidth and throughput measure data capacity and actual transfer rates, respectively, rather than timing variations.
Q12. You connected your laptop to a new wireless network and received an IP address automatically. Which of the following servers has allowed this to occur?
Answer: A. DHCP server
A Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server automatically assigns IP addresses to clients joining a network. DNS resolves domain names, proxy servers filter traffic, and authentication servers handle network access control.
Q13. A computer technician is configuring a NAS for a company to store their corporate data. The technician has only two hard drives available for use and needs to ensure that the data has fault tolerance and redundancy. Which of the following…
Answer: D. RAID 1
RAID 1 mirrors data across two drives, providing the required fault tolerance and redundancy. RAID 0 offers no fault tolerance, while RAID 5 and RAID 10 require a minimum of three and four drives respectively.
Q14. Which of the following network types would be used to create a dedicated, independent, high-speed network to interconnect and share pools of storage devices to multiple servers?
Answer: D. SAN
A storage area network provides a dedicated, high-speed network specifically for sharing block-level storage among servers. Standard area networks like LAN, MAN, and WAN handle general data and user connectivity instead.
Q15. Which of the following protocols operates over port 110 by default?
Answer: C. POP3
Post Office Protocol version three uses port 110 by default to retrieve emails. Internet Message Access Protocol uses port 143, while Server Message Block uses port 445, which helps eliminate the other options.
Q16. What describes an IPv6 address of ::1?
Answer: D. Loopback
The address colon colon one is the designated loopback address in IPv6. It functions exactly like the IPv4 address 127.0.0.1, which allows a machine to test its own network stack without sending traffic externally.
Q17. What RAID level requires at least three hard disks to operate?
Answer: A. RAID 5
RAID 5 requires a minimum of three disks to operate because it uses block level striping with distributed parity. RAID 10 requires four disks, while RAID 0 and RAID 1 only require two disks.
Q18. Your company has an office in Boston and is worried that its employees may not reach the office during periods of heavy snowfall. You have been asked to select a technology that would allow employees to work remotely from their homes durin…
Answer: B. VPN
A virtual private network allows employees to securely connect to the corporate network from a remote location over the internet. The other options manage internal routing, security, or address translation.
Q19. A cellular plan advertises unlimited data, but after uploading videos at 25 Mbps for 20-30 minutes using a mobile hotspot, the speed suddenly drops to 0.125 Mbps. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause for this drop in speed?
Answer: D. The smartphone reached the data cap for the month
Cellular providers often deprioritize or throttle data speeds after a user reaches a specific high-speed data cap. The sudden drop from 25 Mbps to 0.125 Mbps indicates a service provider limitation rather than a hardware failure or a device issue.
Q20. A large multi-function network printer has recently begun to print pages that appear to have a dust-like coating when handled by users. Which of the following components should be replaced based on this description?
Answer: A. Fuser
The fuser assembly uses heat and pressure to bond loose toner powder permanently onto the paper. If printed pages have a dusty or loose toner coating, the fuser is failing and needs to be replaced.
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