5 collocation exercises on diagnosing network problems.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
To see the path packets take, you ___ a route.
You trace a route — using tools like traceroute or tracert to reveal each hop between you and a destination. Trace collocates with route and path. Track off, follow up and chase out are not the standard terms. Tracing a route helps locate where latency or packet loss is introduced along the network path, narrowing down whether the problem is local, ISP-side or remote.
2 / 5
To check if a host is reachable, you ___ it.
You ping a host — sending ICMP echo requests to check reachability and round-trip time. Ping is both noun and verb and is universal networking vocabulary. Knock off, tap up and poke out are not idiomatic. Pinging is usually the first diagnostic step: if a host does not respond, you know connectivity is broken before investigating routing or application-layer issues.
3 / 5
To inspect traffic in detail, you ___ packets.
You capture packets — recording raw network traffic with tools like Wireshark or tcpdump for analysis. Capture collocates with packets and traffic (packet capture). Snare off, grab up and net out are not standard. Capturing packets lets you see exactly what is on the wire — handshakes, retransmissions, malformed frames — which is invaluable for diagnosing subtle protocol-level problems.
4 / 5
When responses are slow, you ___ latency.
You diagnose latency — investigating the root cause of delays in the network path or application. Diagnose collocates with latency, issue and problem. Figure off and read up are wrong; work out is too informal here. Diagnosing latency may involve tracing routes, capturing packets and checking each hop, since delay can originate in DNS, routing, queuing or the server itself.
5 / 5
When the primary link dies, traffic should ___ to a backup.
Traffic fails over — automatically switching to a standby link or server when the primary fails. The phrasal verb fail over (noun: failover) is the standard resilience term. Switch off, flip up and drop out are not the collocation. Failover keeps services available during outages; a well-tested failover path means users barely notice when the primary path goes down.