Try 12 free CompTIA Network+ practice questions
Real exam-style questions taken word for word from the CompTIA Network+ study guide. Three are below, with the full answer explanation. Enter your email and the full 12-question PDF is yours.
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Three questions to try right now
Work each one before you open the answer. These are the same style and depth as the CompTIA Network+ (N10-009) exam expects.
Question 1. A technician must troubleshoot a connectivity complaint for a user whose workstation was just physically relocated to a new cubicle. No other users are affected. Which troubleshooting approach is MOST appropriate to begin with, and why?
- A. Top-down, because the problem is likely an application misconfiguration caused by the move
- B. Bottom-up, because physical-layer changes (a new cable run, different patch panel port) are the most probable cause
- C. Divide-and-conquer, because starting at Layer 3 with a ping test cuts the search space in half regardless of cause
- D. Top-down, because the user's application settings must be verified before cables are checked
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Answer: B. A desk relocation is a physical-layer change: a new cable, a new patch panel port, or a misseated connector. Bottom-up (start at Layer 1) is the correct approach when physical-infrastructure changes are the most likely cause. Checking whether the cable is seated and the switch port has a link light before examining IP addressing or application settings is the right sequence.
- A: Top-down is appropriate when physical infrastructure is stable and unchanged; a desk relocation is specifically a physical change, making bottom-up more efficient.
Question 2. A technician has just terminated both ends of a new Cat 6 patch cable in the field. A basic wire-map tester confirms that all 8 pins map 1-to-1 from end to end, yet the cable certifier marks the cable as FAIL with a NEXT margin of -2 dB. What is the MOST likely cause?
- A. Open circuit on pin 4
- B. Split pair, the correct conductors are not matched with their twisted-pair partners at one end
- C. TX/RX reversal, the cable is wired as a crossover
- D. Cable length exceeds the 100-meter maximum
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Answer: B. A split pair passes a basic continuity (wire-map) tester because each pin maps correctly pin-to-pin at both ends. However, if the wrong conductors, those from different twisted pairs, are placed on the same set of pins, the natural cancellation provided by pair twisting is destroyed. The result is excessive crosstalk (failing NEXT margin) even though electrical continuity exists. A cable certifier catches this; a wire-map tester does not.
- A: An open circuit on pin 4 would cause the wire-map tester to report a failure on pin 4, the tester passed all 8 pins.
Question 3. A network technician creates VLAN 30 in the switch's VLAN database and assigns several access ports to it. Users on those ports report they can reach other users in VLAN 30 on the same switch but cannot reach users in VLAN 30 on the adjacent switch. What is the MOST likely cause?
- A. The STP root bridge election removed VLAN 30 from the topology
- B. VLAN 30 is not added to the trunk's allowed VLAN list on the uplink between the two switches
- C. The native VLAN on the trunk does not match VLAN 30
- D. PortFast is enabled on the trunk port, which blocks tagged frames for new VLANs
Show the answer
Answer: B. Creating a VLAN in the database is necessary but not sufficient. For traffic to traverse a trunk, the VLAN must appear in the trunk's allowed VLAN list on both ends of the uplink. A VLAN absent from the allowed list is silently pruned, frames are dropped with no error message. Same-switch communication works because both ports share the same VLAN database locally; cross-switch communication fails because the trunk drops VLAN 30 frames.
- A: STP operates on a per-VLAN basis but does not remove a VLAN from the topology. A blocked STP port blocks all VLANs equally on that port, it would not selectively affect a single new VLAN while others work.
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