I've had to memorize several things I personally felt/thought were wrong to pass CompTIA's tests, but this one absolutely kills me. Their troubleshooting procedure is as follows:

1) establish the symptoms
2) identify the affected area
3) establish what has changed
4) select the most probable cause
5) implement a solution
6) test the result
7) recognize the potential effects of the solution
8) document the solution

My gripe: #7 should come before #5.

Having worked in several large production environments, I can personally attest to the fact that failing to recognize the potential effects before implementing a solution is a guaranteed way to get fired. You have to schedule downtime. You have to notify people of the downtime. You have to understand what other processes might be interrupted by your actions and deal with them too... like stopping and restarting nightly backups to replace a hub with bad ports, for example. Then and only then do you implement a solution.

i would have to agree with you 100%

that does sound very backwards "implement your soultion....then identify problems with the solution"

that's like "shoot 1st, ask questions later"

Yeah, download the Network+ exam objectives PDF from CompTIA's website to see for yourself. Luckily I passed the test with a 873 out of 900 (646 required to pass) this afternoon and there was only one question relating to that procedure on it. If I had only known what an ST fiber connector looked like would have aced it... !@#$ Europeans, why can't they use SC connectors like we do here in the U.S.

Congratulations!