117-202 · Question #295
Which of these tools, without any options, provides the most information when performing DNS queries?
The correct answer is A. dig. See the full explanation below for the reasoning.
Question
Options
- Adig
- Bnslookup
- Chost
- Dnamed-checkconf
- Enamed-checkzone
How the community answered
(29 responses)- A79% (23)
- B7% (2)
- C3% (1)
- E10% (3)
Community Discussion
6
Samuel O.Dec 28, 2025dig is the right pick here. Run it bare against a hostname and you get the full query headers, question section, answer section, authority records, additional records, and query stats all at once, which is way more than nslookup or host spit out by default, and the other two options are zone/config validation tools that don't even do live queries.
Marit C.Dec 12, 2025A is right, dig defaults to verbose output including flags, TTL, and authority sections.
Samuel O.Dec 14, 2025Dig does default to verbose, but the point worth adding is that on the actual exam they sometimes word it as "dig automatically displays the answer section" which trips people up because the answer section is just one piece of the full output it dumps by default.
Dervla O.Dec 4, 2025The first move on this one is elimination, not recall. Named-checkconf and named-checkzone are validation tools for configuration and zone files, they do not perform DNS queries at all, so D and E are gone before you even think about the other three. That leaves you with A, B, and C, and the stem is asking specifically about information volume with no options added. Host gives you a clean one-liner by default, nslookup gives you a modest block with the server and the answer, but dig dumps the full query header, flags, question section, answer section, authority section, additional section, query time, server address, timestamp, and message size, all without you typing a single flag. The difference in output depth is not subtle, it is the whole game. I remember sitting with this exact question type on my own 117-202 attempt years ago, and the thing that locked it in for me was having run all three tools the night before just to compare them side by side. Watching dig flood the terminal while host handed me one line made the answer feel obvious when I saw it in the exam room. Read the stem twice, strip out the tools that do not even belong in the category being tested, then compare what is left on the specific condition the question sets, which here is default behavior with zero options.
Nina C.Dec 22, 2025I almost talked myself into nslookup because it feels more familiar from just clicking around before I started studying, but nslookup without options only shows you the answer and server info, while dig with no arguments gives you the full query section, answer section, authority section, additional section, and timing stats all in one shot, so A is the one.
Samuel O.Dec 24, 2025That "without options" qualifier in the question stem is doing a lot of work, because nslookup in interactive mode gives you real flexibility too, but dig wins both on the exam and in the terminal because authority and additional records show up by default without you having to ask for them.