1. A. The star topology is the easiest to modify. A physical star topology branches each network device off a central device called a hub or a switch, making it easy to add a new workstation. See Chapter 6 for more information.

2. D. A key role of the Transport layer is to provide error checking. The Transport layer also provides functions such as reliable end-to-end communications, segmentation and reassembly of larger messages, and combination of smaller messages into a single larger message. See Chapter 6 for more information.

3. C. 10Base2 is also known as thinnet, and it uses coaxial cable. The correct cable standard is RG-58AU. RG-6 is for cable television and satellite modems, and RG-8 is for thicknet, or 10Base5. RJ-45 is a connector for twisted pair cabling. See Chapter 6 for more information.

4. A. FTP listens on port 21. See Chapter 7 for more information.

5. D. The IMAP and POP3 protocols can be used to retrieve email from mail servers. See Chapter 7 for more information.

6. B. HTTPS connections are secured using either Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS). See Chapter 7 for more information.

7. B. An Internet service provider (ISP) provides direct access to the Internet. See Chapter 8 for more information.

8. C. An ISDN B (bearer) channel provides 64Kbps data throughput. A home-based BRI ISDN provides two B channels. See Chapter 8 for more information.

9. A, D. WiMax and LTE are the two current 4G cellular technologies. GSM and CDMA are 3G technologies. See Chapter 8 for more information.

10. A. The backlight provides light to the LCD screen. The inverter provides power to the backlight, and the screen displays the picture. See Chapter 9 for more information.

11. B. If the laptop is using shared video memory, then the system memory is shared with the video card. If the video card is using 512MB (half a gigabyte), then there is 1.5GB left for the system. See Chapter 9 for more information.

12. C. PCMCIA 5.0 is also known as CardBus. See Chapter 9 for more information.

13. C. The laser creates an image on the photosensitive drum that is then transferred to the paper by the transfer corona. The fuser heats up the toner so it adheres to the page. The transfer corona charges the page, and the eraser lamp cleans the drum before a page is printed. A rubber blade is also used to physically remove toner from the drum. See Chapter 10 for more information.

14. A. Laser printers use toner, which they melt to the page in the image of the text and graphics being printed. A toner cartridge holds the fine toner dust until it is used in the printing process. See Chapter 10 for more information.

15. B. The output of impact printers such as dot-matrix printers is measured in characters per second (CPS). Many bubble-jet and laser printers are measured in terms of pages per minute (PPM). See Chapter 10 for more information.

16. A, C. Monitors and power supplies can retain significant electrical charges even after they’re unplugged. Don’t open the back of a monitor or the power supply unless you are specifically trained to do so. See Chapter 11 for more information.

17. C. Roughly half the time spent communicating should be devoted to listening. See Chapter 11 for more information.

18. A. When lifting heavy equipment, center the weight as close to your body as possible. Then, keep your back straight and lift with your legs. See Chapter 11 for more information.

19. C. White streaks on printouts are most likely caused by toner on the transfer corona wire. Vertical black lines are caused by a scratch or a groove in the EP drum. If the fuser was not heating properly, toner would not bond to the paper and you would have smearing. Faulty print drivers will cause garbage to print or there will be no printing at all. See Chapter 20 for more information.

20. C. The IPCONFIG command can be used with Windows XP (and others) to see the networking configuration values at the command line. It is one of the most commonly used command-line utilities that can be used in troubleshooting and network configurations. To renew IP configuration information, the IPCONFIG /renew command is used to force the DHCP server to renew the IP information assigned to the system. See Chapter 20 for more information.

21. A. The most likely cause of those listed is a worn paper feed roller. Stepper motors control the back-and-forth motion of a print head in a bubble-jet printer. If the fuser assembly were faulty, the images would smear. See Chapter 20 for more information.

22. C. System components are essential for the basic functionality of a computer system. Many of the landmarks found on the motherboard can be considered system components, even expansion slots to a degree. What you plug into those slots, however, must be considered peripheral to the basic operation of the system. For more information, see Chapter 1.

23. A. Although DRAM is a very common type of RAM essentially used in all computer systems today, it does not describe a physical memory format. SIMMs, DIMMs, and RIMMs are all technologies on which memory-module manufacturing is based. For more information, see Chapter 1.

24. A, B. Motherboards commonly have RAM slots and expansion slots. Older motherboards even had CPU slots. Modern motherboards have connectors for powering cooling fans. Gyroscopes are most commonly found in mobile devices. Scanners are external devices. Although there might be one or more types of HDD interfaces built into the motherboard, the HDD itself is not. For more information, see Chapter 1.

25. A. A controller chip is responsible for encoding data to be stored on the disk platters as well as performing geometry translation for the BIOS. Translation is necessary because the true number of sectors per track of the hard disk drive system usually exceeds what is supported by the BIOS. For more information, see Chapter 2.

26. C. The standard peripheral power connector, or Molex connector, is commonly used on larger drives because it allows more current to flow to the drive than does the Berg connector, which is used with floppy diskette drives. For more information, see Chapter 2.

27. C. IDE (ATA-1) and EIDE (ATA-2 and later) were specific nicknames for the ATA series of standards. Although ATA is technically accurate, it refers to legacy IDE standards as well as newer SATA standards. Instead of using the term ATA to be synonymous with IDE and EIDE, as had been done in the past, the term PATA was coined, referring to the parallel nature of IDE communications. The term PATA differentiates the IDE and EIDE form of ATA from Serial ATA. SCSI is a related yet completely different type of technology. For more information, see Chapter 2.

28. B, E. Although technically PCI and ISA could be used for graphics adapters, AGP was specifically designed for the use of high-speed, 3D graphic video cards. PCIe offers better performance than AGP for graphics adapters. For more information, see Chapter 3.

29. C. Parallel printer ports use a D-subminiature connector known as a DB25. The DE9 port is used for the RS-232 serial port. The DA15 is used for AUI and game/joystick ports. The DE25 is not a common port. For more information, see Chapter 3.

30. B, C. RJ-11 ports are used in analog telephony and allow modems attached to computer serial ports to transmit modulated digital information across the public switched telephone network (PSTN). RJ-45 ports are used by various network interface controller (NIC) cards for attachment to networks such as Ethernet. RG-6 and RG-11 coaxial connectors and DB25 connectors are not modular. For more information, see Chapter 3.

31. A. The native resolution refers to how many pixels an LCD screen can display (across and down) without distortion. The native resolution is based on the placement of the actual transistors that create the image by twisting the liquid crystals. The contrast ratio is the measurement between the darkest color and the lightest color that an LCD screen can display. For more information, see Chapter 4.

32. D. Although there is a Super AMOLED display, employing active-matrix technology, there is not a corresponding passive-matrix version. The other technologies exist and are discussed in further detail in Chapter 4.

33. B. Privacy filters are used to limit the viewing angle for a monitor. With such filters, the screen image becomes indiscernible when viewed at just a few degrees from center. For more information, see Chapter 4.

34. D. A thick client is any computer system with a standard configuration. The gaming PC has enhancements over thick clients to their CPU, video, audio, and cooling. The home server PC must have specialized capabilities and services along with a faster NIC than the thick client and a RAID array. The thin client is a lesser device in comparison to the thick client, but that cost-saving feature is its enhancement. These less expensive computers can connect over the network to servers for their operating system images and applications. For more information, see Chapter 5.

35. C. Virtualization workstations require more RAM than standard systems and need to be equipped with as many multicore processors as possible. Video and audio are not resources that need to be enhanced for such workstations. Although a RAID array is a wise addition whenever servers with valuable information are involved, a virtualization workstation does not require one. For more information, see Chapter 5.

36. A. A TV tuner card is a requirement for a home theater PC but not for a home server. The other options are among those features that are required. For more information, see Chapter 5.

37. A, D. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are two of the most popular operating systems for mobile devices on the market. The other two are not. Although some mobile operating systems are based on Linux or UNIX, Ubuntu is a Linux distribution not used for mobile devices. For more information, see Chapter 18.

38. B. Bluetooth allows you to pair a mobile device to a computer or to a device such as an automotive sound system or headset. Data can be transferred between devices and media can be streamed from the mobile device. For more information, see Chapter 18.

39. D. Synchronizing a mobile device with a computer system allows you to mirror personal data between the devices, regardless of which one contains the most current data. Calibration refers to matching the device’s and user’s perceptions of where the user is touching the screen. Remote wipes allow you to remove personal data from a lost or stolen device. Pairing is what must be done in Bluetooth for two Bluetooth devices to connect and communicate. For more information, see Chapter 18.

40. D. The hypervisor is a virtual machine manager—the software that allows the virtual machines to exist. For more information, see Chapter 12.

41. C. Standard permissions are collections of special permissions, including Full Control, Modify, Read & Execute, Read, and Write. For more information, see Chapter 12.

42. C. Windows includes Windows Update, a feature designed to keep Windows current by automatically downloading updates such as patches and security fixes and installing these fixes automatically. For more information, see Chapter 12.

43. B. Windows 7, Vista, and XP support both basic and dynamic storage. Basic can have a primary and an extended partition, while dynamic can be simple, spanned, or striped. For more information, see Chapter 13.

44. A. The /pch option is available only in Windows XP and is used to display the history view. For more information, see Chapter 13.

45. C. For applications that don’t need to drop all the way down to Low, this equates to a base priority of 6. For more information, see Chapter 13.

46. A, C, D. EFS is available in the Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 allowing for encryption/decryption on files stored in NTFS volumes. For more information, see Chapter 14.

47. A. Power over Ethernet (PoE) is a handy technology to supply both power and an Ethernet connection. The purpose of Power over Ethernet (PoE) is pretty much described in its name: Electrical power is transmitted over twisted-pair Ethernet cable (along with data). For more information, see Chapter 14.

48. B. With half duplex, communications travel in both directions but in only one direction at any given time. For more information, see Chapter 14.

49. A, B. The three location types in Windows Vista for a network are Home, Work, and Public. If you choose one of the first two, network discovery is on by default, allowing you to see other computers and other computers to see you. For more information, see Chapter 14.

50. D. The Sync Center in Windows Vista is the primary interface for configuring synchronization. For more information, see Chapter 15.

51. A. The Tablet PC Settings applet (Start > Control Panel > Tablet PC Settings) in Windows Vista can be used, as the name implies, to configure the device on which the operating system is installed to function as a true tablet. For more information, see Chapter 15.

52. C. Component Services allows you to administer, as well as deploy, component services and configure behavior like security. For more information, see Chapter 15.

53. B. It can be set from 1 to 999. For more information, see Chapter 15.

54. A. Windows Firewall (Start > Control Panel > Windows Firewall) is used to block access from the network (be it internal or the Internet). For more information, see Chapter 15.

55. B. Trojans are programs that enter a system or network under the guise of another program. While rootkits may do this, it is not their primary feature and thus not the best answer for this question. For more information, see Chapter 17.

56. C. Degaussing involves applying a strong magnetic field to initialize the media (this is also referred to as disk wiping). This process helps ensure that information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. For more information, see Chapter 17.

57. D. On a number of wireless devices, the term Network Lock is used in place of MAC filtering, and the two are synonymous. For more information, see Chapter 17.

58. A. A restore point is a copy of your system configuration at a given point in time. It’s like a backup of your configuration but not necessarily your data. For more information, see Chapter 12.

59. B. Windows XP includes a special utility known as Dr. Watson. This utility intercepts all error conditions and, instead of presenting the user with a cryptic Windows error, displays a slew of information that can be used to troubleshoot the problem. For more information, see Chapter 19.

60. C. A computer virus is a small, deviously ingenious program that replicates itself to other computers, generally causing those computers to behave abnormally. Generally speaking, a virus’s main function is to reproduce. For more information, see Chapter 17.