53 exam-style questions on Network fundamentals — topic A2.1 of Networks in the IB Computer Science syllabus — with answers and explanations. Samples below; the full set is free with an account.
A manufacturer allows its suppliers to reach a restricted part of its internal network from outside, over the public internet and after signing in. What is this arrangement called?
Answer: An extranet
An intranet is reachable only from inside the organisation; extending controlled access to named outside partners makes it an extranet. It is not simply a wide area network, because what defines it is who may use it rather than how far it reaches.
Which component gives a computer its physical address and connects it to the transmission medium?
Answer: The network interface card
The physical address is fixed into the interface hardware by its manufacturer, which is why it travels with the card rather than with the network. A switch and a router forward frames and packets but do not supply the host's own physical address.
A newer version of the internet addressing scheme uses much longer addresses than the original one. What was the main reason for introducing it?
Answer: The original scheme's supply of addresses was running out
The original 32-bit space allows only about four thousand million addresses, which is fewer than the number of connected devices, and techniques such as address translation only postponed the problem. Address length has no effect on transfer speed, and encryption is handled above the addressing layer.
The service that turns names such as example.org into numeric addresses stops responding across a whole site, while every other part of the network keeps working. Which task can a user still carry out?
Answer: Opening a page by typing the numeric address of the server that holds it
Name resolution only translates a name into an address; once the address itself is known the message is delivered without it. Every task that starts from a name, including the reverse lookup, depends on the service and fails with it.
An organisation describes its network in four statements. Which single statement establishes that the network is a wide area network rather than a local area network?
Answer: The links between its sites are leased from a telecommunications provider
The classification rests on scope and on who owns the links: a LAN covers one site over links the organisation owns, so leased links reaching other sites make it a WAN. Device count, transmission medium and the number of protocols decide nothing.
An administrator stops using automatic address configuration and types a fixed address into every laptop on a site by hand. Which consequence follows most directly from that change?
Answer: Every later change to the addressing has to be made on each laptop in turn
Automatic configuration issues addresses and settings from one place, so a change of range or gateway is made once. Hand-typed addresses move that work onto every machine and make duplicate addresses likely; naming, capacity and the medium are untouched.
That was 6 of 53 Network fundamentals questions.
Practise all 53 freeStateAO1 · 1–2 marks
One word or one short sentence. No explanation, no working: the mark is for the fact itself.
OutlineAO1 · 1–2 marks
A brief account or summary: the main points in two or three sentences, no evaluation.
ExplainAO2 · 2–4 marks
Give reasons or causes: say what happens AND why, linking each step with 'because' or 'so that'.
53 Network fundamentals questions — free with an account. Spaced repetition, streaks and full exam simulations included.
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