Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Practice Exam

What should be done to the subnet mask if the IP address of Workstation A is 192.0.10.24/28 and Workstation B is 192.0.10.100/28 to allow for communications?

1. Change the subnet mask of the hosts to /25.

2. Keep the current subnet mask.

3. Change the subnet mask to /27.

4. Change the subnet mask of the hosts to /24.

The correct answer is: Change the subnet mask of the hosts to /25.

To establish communication between Workstation A (192.0.10.24/28) and Workstation B (192.0.10.100/28), the subnet mask needs to be adjusted since both workstations currently reside in different subnets due to the /28 subnetting. The /28 subnet mask allows for 16 IP addresses (from .0 to .15, .16 to .31, etc.), which means each subnet can contain a maximum of 14 usable hosts (since 2 are reserved for the network and broadcast addresses). In this case, Workstation A is in the subnet 192.0.10.16 (network address) to 192.0.10.31 (broadcast address), while Workstation B is in the subnet 192.0.10.96 (network address) to 192.0.10.111 (broadcast address). They belong to entirely separate subnets, preventing communication. By changing the subnet mask to /25, the network is expanded to cover a range of 128 IP addresses (from .0 to .127). This change means that both Workstation A and Workstation B would fall within the same network, allowing them to communicate with each other. This