CompTIA A+ Core 2: study guide and free practice questions The ideas the A+ Core 2 (220-1202) exam tests, one page each: what Microsoft, Apple, Google, NIST and the other primary sources say, the traps the questions set, and real practice questions to try. Every page links to its sources.
10 free practice questions Drawn from every domain. Pick an answer to see why each option is right or wrong.
A user prints from a Windows 11 laptop at the main office and at a branch. After each branch visit, jobs go to the branch printer unless the user picks another. The user wants jobs to go to the main office printer. Which of the following should the technician do? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Operating Systems building.
Not that one: C is right. In the game your Operating Systems building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
Your answer A. Reinstall the main office printer's driver on the laptop.Reinstalling the driver leaves the default printer setting alone, so Windows would keep switching to the last printer used. Your answer B. Share the main office printer from Devices and Printers.Sharing the printer lets other computers use it. It does not stop Windows changing this laptop's default. The answer C. Turn off automatic management of the default printer.With Let Windows manage my default printer turned on, Windows makes the last printer used the default, and on mobile devices the default can change with location. Your answer D. Remove the branch printer from the laptop's printer list.The user prints at the branch too. Removing that printer would stop the switching only by taking away a printer the user needs.
A user's new collaboration app on a Windows 11 laptop cannot receive incoming connections because Windows Firewall blocks it. The laptop is on the user's home network, which is set as a Private network. Which of the following should the technician do? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Security building.
Not that one: B is right. In the game your Security building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
Your answer A. Change the network profile to Public.Microsoft describes public networks as untrusted, with stricter security controls than private ones. Switching to Public would not add an exception for the app. The answer B. Allow the app through the firewall.Windows Firewall is turned on or off per network profile, but Microsoft warns that turning it off could make the device more vulnerable to unauthorized access. Your answer C. Turn off the firewall for the Private network.Turning the firewall off for the Private profile would let the app's connections in, along with everything else on that network. Microsoft says to allow a blocked app through the firewall instead of turning the firewall off. Your answer D. Reinstall the app with administrator rights.The app is installed and running; the firewall is filtering its incoming connections. Reinstalling it does not create a firewall exception.
A user closes every app in the iPhone App Switcher several times a day to keep the phone fast. The user now complains that apps take longer to open. Which of the following should the technician recommend? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Software Troubleshooting building.
Not that one: D is right. In the game your Software Troubleshooting building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
Your answer A. Offload unused apps to free storage.Apple does advise keeping at least 1 GB of free space, but the symptom here follows from the user's habit: a force-closed app must reload all its data when reopened. Your answer B. Turn on Low Power Mode.Apple says Low Power Mode disables certain features or makes them work slower, so it would not make apps open faster. Your answer C. Delete and reinstall the slow apps.A reinstalled app behaves the same way: if it is force closed, it has to reload all its data the next time it opens. The answer D. Stop force closing apps that work normally.Apple notes that force closing apps unnecessarily can slow down an iPhone, because reopening a closed app takes longer when it has to reload all its data. Force closing is for an app that has stopped responding, not for routine use.
A technician logs a ticket for a phishing email a user reported, recording the user's contact details, the affected mailbox and when it was reported. The security team later wants to count incidents by type. Which of the following ticket fields should the technician also complete? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Operational Procedures building.
Not that one: B is right. In the game your Operational Procedures building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
Your answer A. SeveritySeverity ranks how much harm an incident does. Two phishing tickets can have different severities, so it cannot group them by kind. The answer B. CategoryNIST's list of basic data elements for a reported incident includes, where known, the incident category, alongside the reporter's contact information, status-change timestamps and the affected resources. Your answer C. Escalation levelThe escalation level shows how far up the support tiers a ticket has gone. It says nothing about what kind of problem it is. Your answer D. Device informationDevice details describe the affected hardware. A phishing email is grouped by its kind, which is the category field.
A Linux user wrote a script named backup.sh and wants to be able to run it. Group members and all other users must keep exactly the permissions they have now. Which of the following commands should the user run? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Operating Systems building.
Not that one: D is right. In the game your Operating Systems building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
Your answer A. chmod a+x backup.shThe letter a stands for all users. This would let the group and everyone else run the script as well. Your answer B. chmod u=x backup.shThe = operator sets exactly the listed bits and removes the rest. The owner would end up with execute only and could no longer read or edit the script. Your answer C. chmod o+x backup.shThe letter o means other users, those who are neither the owner nor in the group. The owner would still not be able to run the script. The answer D. chmod u+x backup.shIn symbolic chmod, u is the user who owns the file and + adds the listed bits to the existing ones. chmod u+x adds execute for the owner only and leaves the group's and others' permissions unchanged.
A technician reads that attackers are exploiting a security flaw in the router model a small office uses, and that the router's maker has released a fix. Which of the following should the technician do? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Security building.
Not that one: A is right. In the game your Security building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
The answer A. Update the router's firmware.CISA advises checking the router manufacturer's website for the latest firmware, because firmware updates fix flaws and address security vulnerabilities. Installing the maker's fix is a firmware update. Your answer B. Change the router's default password.Changing default passwords is sound advice, but the flaw is in the router's own software. Only the maker's firmware update removes it. Your answer C. Change the SSID to a unique name.A unique SSID makes the router's make harder to guess, but the vulnerable software is still running on the router. Your answer D. Enable content filtering.Content filtering controls which websites users can visit. It does not patch a security flaw in the router itself.
A technician must let a user install an internally built Android app downloaded from the company's website. The phone runs a current Android version and blocks the install. Which of the following should the technician do? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Software Troubleshooting building.
Not that one: D is right. In the game your Software Troubleshooting building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
Your answer A. Turn on developer mode and USB debugging.Developer mode and USB debugging are for development and are a security concern of their own; they are not Android's opt-in for installing from another source. Your answer B. Root the phone to remove install restrictions.Rooting strips the OS's security layers to allow one install; Android already has a per-source permission for exactly this. Your answer C. Enable Unknown sources for the whole device.The device-wide Unknown sources switch belongs to Android 7.1.1 and earlier; current Android grants the permission to a particular installing app instead. The answer D. Grant the browser the Install unknown apps permission.Android blocks installs from sources other than Google Play until the user opts in.
A technician logs a change to install a printer driver update on office workstations. The configuration management plan lists this update type as pre-approved. Which of the following should happen next? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Operational Procedures building.
Not that one: A is right. In the game your Operational Procedures building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
The answer A. Note this on the request and make the change.NIST SP 800-128's change control process has a step that asks whether a change needs configuration control at all. Your answer B. Submit it to the change board for approval.Board approval is the normal path, but this update type is already pre-approved in the plan. NIST says such a change is noted on the request and made without further approval. Your answer C. Run a full security impact analysis on it.Security impact analysis belongs to changes that need control. A pre-approved change type was assessed when it was approved, so it goes ahead without further analysis. Your answer D. Schedule the update for the next change freeze.A change freeze is a period when changes are blocked, so scheduling an update into one makes no sense. The pre-approved update can go ahead now.
To free space, a user deleted a synced folder on a Windows 11 laptop. Its files then vanished from the user's phone and the sync service's website too. A few were opened on the laptop recently; most never were. Which of the following should the technician do? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Operating Systems building.
Not that one: A is right. In the game your Operating Systems building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
The answer A. Restore the folder from the cloud recycle bin.Deleting an online-only file from the device deletes it from cloud storage on every device and online, and it can be restored from the service's recycle bin on the web. Your answer B. Restore the folder from the laptop's Recycle Bin.Microsoft says a deleted file appears in the device recycle bin only if it was locally available. The files that were never opened on the laptop were online-only, so the laptop's Recycle Bin holds only the few recent ones. Your answer C. Turn off syncing so the deletion stops spreading.The files are already gone from the phone and the website, so the deletion has finished syncing. The way back is the cloud recycle bin. Your answer D. Run a file recovery tool on the laptop's drive.Microsoft says online-only files do not take up space on the computer, so most of these files were never written to the laptop's drive.
A technician notices a workstation sending traffic to an unknown external address, but neither Task Manager nor the operating system's list of network connections shows any process or connection responsible. Which of the following types of malware is most likely present? Right. In the game that’s Renown for your Security building.
Not that one: D is right. In the game your Security building would lose a little Renown, and this question would come back later.
Your answer A. SpywareSpyware sends data out, but by itself it does not make its process and connections vanish from Task Manager and the connection list. The hiding points to a rootkit. Your answer B. KeyloggerA keylogger records keystrokes. It does not explain why the operating system's own tools cannot see the process or connection sending the traffic. Your answer C. CryptominerA cryptominer typically shows up as heavy CPU or GPU use. Concealing processes and connections from the operating system is what a rootkit does. The answer D. RootkitA rootkit hides programs, files, network connections and services by intercepting and modifying the operating system calls that report system information. Traffic that the OS's own tools cannot attribute to any process or connection is the sign of that hiding.
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