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ICT Officer practice questions with answers

Updated 15 September 2026 · 2 min read

An ICT officer answers to everyone in an office, so these practice questions range widely: IT fundamentals, hardware, networking and customer care carry equal weight, with security close behind. Several come from the real Centralized ICT Acquisition Officer paper. For each question, decide what you would do in a real office, and why, before you open the answer.

How this guide was made

Written for this site with AI assistance, then checked automatically before publishing. The topic table, sample questions, worked examples and study plan are generated from this site’s question bank: each worked example is recalculated by separate code, and each sample answer says where it came from.

The guide deliberately states no salaries, grades, pass marks or exam dates. Those change, and they could not be checked here, so take them from the advert itself.

This site is independent and is not affiliated with MIFOTRA or any employer.

Practice questions

  1. A network technician is tasked with running cables through an air circulation space above a drop ceiling. What type of cable MUST be used?

    1. Fiber optic
    2. STP
    3. PVC
    4. Plenum
    Show the answer

    D. Plenum

    Plenum-rated cables have a special fire-retardant jacket that produces less toxic smoke if burned, which is required by fire code for air-handling spaces.

    Original practice question, written against published exam objectives. Open this question

  2. A technician is replacing a laptop keyboard. After reassembly, the display does not turn on but external monitors work. The MOST likely cause is...

    1. The keyboard is incompatible.
    2. The display ribbon cable was not reconnected properly.
    3. The graphics card is burned out.
    4. The laptop needs a BIOS update.
    Show the answer

    B. The display ribbon cable was not reconnected properly.

    When working inside a laptop, a common mistake is failing to securely seat the fragile ribbon cables, such as the one for the built-in display.

    Original practice question, written against published exam objectives. Open this question

  3. An administrator forces a Group Policy update on a client PC by running gpupdate /force. Which command verifies what policies are actually applied to the user and PC?

    1. nslookup
    2. netstat -an
    3. ipconfig /all
    4. gpresult /r
    Show the answer

    D. gpresult /r

    The `gpresult` tool displays the Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) to show exactly which GPOs were applied or denied on a machine.

    Original practice question, written against published exam objectives. Open this question

  4. When a printer is not printing, which of the following should you check first?

    1. Paper tray
    2. Printer driver installation
    3. All answer are correct
    4. Printer ink levels
    Show the answer

    C. All answer are correct

    Paper, ink and driver are all standard first-line checks in printer troubleshooting, so the combined option is the intended answer.

    Real past-paper question; answer cross-checked against the original session. Open this question

  5. A Linux admin needs to assign read, write, and execute permissions to the owner of a script, but only read and execute to the group and others. Which command achieves this?

    1. chmod 644 script.sh
    2. chmod 755 script.sh
    3. chmod 777 script.sh
    4. chmod 744 script.sh
    Show the answer

    B. chmod 755 script.sh

    In octal permission notation, 7 (4+2+1) is rwx for the owner, and 5 (4+1) is r-x for group and others. Thus, 755 is correct.

    Original practice question, written against published exam objectives. Open this question

  6. Which tool would you use to check for disk errors in Windows?

    1. Disk Management
    2. Task Manager
    3. Disk Cleanup
    4. chkdsk
    Show the answer

    D. chkdsk

    chkdsk scans the file system and disk surface for errors. Disk Management partitions drives; Disk Cleanup only frees space.

    Real past-paper question; answer cross-checked against the original session. Open this question

  7. An engineer connects a spectrum analyzer to a coax cable to check for electromagnetic interference. What OSI layer is being analyzed?

    1. Transport
    2. Network
    3. Data Link
    4. Physical
    Show the answer

    D. Physical

    Objective 1.1: The Physical layer (Layer 1) deals with signaling, cables, and interference. Data Link is frames, Network is packets.

    Original practice question, written against published exam objectives. Open this question

  8. What does VPN stand for?

    1. Virtual Public Network
    2. Verified Private Network
    3. Virtual Private Network
    4. Virtual Protected Network
    Show the answer

    C. Virtual Private Network

    Virtual Private Network - an encrypted tunnel that carries private traffic across a public network.

    Real past-paper question; answer cross-checked against the original session. Open this question

Two kinds of question, two approaches

Technical questions have a factual answer, so work them by recalling the rule and eliminating options that break it. Judgement questions describe a situation involving people, and several options may sound reasonable. For those, ask which option solves the problem while keeping to procedure, protecting data and treating the person with respect.

Learn from the real paper items

Where a question comes from the real paper, the answer note says how the answer was established. Study those items closely, because they show how public-service ICT questions are framed: short scenarios, practical choices, and distractors that are tempting shortcuts.

After the questions

The worked examples below cover subnetting, transfer times, password strength and backup power, all of which an ICT officer meets when running a small office network. Further questions from the full bank follow; you can read all of them, and an access code opens their answers.

Two calculations to try

Try each one on paper first. Every figure is generated and then recalculated by separate code before it is published.

  1. Subnet details for a /30 address

    A host is configured as 192.168.200.107/30. Find the subnet mask, network address, broadcast address, usable host range and number of usable hosts.

    Show the working
    1. /30 means 30 network bits, so the mask is 255.255.255.252.
    2. The interesting octet is the fourth, where the mask is 252. Block size = 256 − 252 = 4.
    3. The network address is the multiple of 4 at or below the address in that octet: 192.168.200.104.
    4. The broadcast is one below the next network: 192.168.200.107.
    5. Usable hosts run from 192.168.200.105 to 192.168.200.106: 2^2 − 2 = 2 addresses.

    Answer: Mask 255.255.255.252, network 192.168.200.104, broadcast 192.168.200.107, hosts 192.168.200.105–192.168.200.106 (2 usable)

  2. How long a file takes to transfer

    How long does a 12 GB file take to copy over a 20 Mbps link? Use decimal units (1 GB = 1,000 MB) and ignore protocol overhead.

    Show the working
    1. Storage is sized in bytes, link speed in bits. Multiply megabytes by 8 to get megabits.
    2. 12000 MB × 8 = 96000 Mb
    3. Time = 96000 Mb ÷ 20 Mbps = 4800 s ≈ 1.33 hours
    4. Real transfers take longer: TCP/IP headers, retransmissions and disk speed all eat into the link rate.

    Answer: 1.33 hours

More from the full bank

Anyone can read these questions. Their answers and explanations open with an access code.

Common questions

Why do some questions have no technical content at all?

ICT officers serve colleagues and citizens as public servants. Tests check conduct, confidentiality and communication as well as technical skill, because both decide whether an officer does the job well.

How many practice questions should I do?

Enough to cover every area several times and to repeat the ones you missed. The quality of your review matters more than the raw number.

More ICT Officer guides

The same guide for related positions