Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Practice Exam

Which reserved IPv4 address uses the highest address in the network range?

1. Network address

2. Loopback address

3. Directed broadcast address

4. Private address

The correct answer is: Directed broadcast address

The directed broadcast address utilizes the highest address in a given network range. This address is specifically designated for broadcasting packets to all hosts on a subnet and is derived by setting all the host bits to 1 in the binary representation of the network's address. For instance, if a network is defined as 192.168.1.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, the directed broadcast address would be 192.168.1.255. This address is crucial for scenarios where a message needs to be sent to all devices on the network without addressing each one individually. In contrast, the network address serves as an identifier for the network itself and does not correspond to an individual device, while the loopback address, primarily used for testing and localhost communication, is specifically 127.0.0.1. Private addresses refer to a range of addresses reserved for use within private networks that are not routable on the internet. These options do not take up the highest address in their respective ranges or have the same broadcasting functionality as the directed broadcast address.