nerdexam
GIAC

GSEC · Question #402

How many bytes does it take to represent the hexadecimal value OxFEDCBA?

The correct answer is C. 3. Each hexadecimal digit represents 4 bits (one nibble), so two hex digits equal one byte. The value OxFEDCBA has 6 hex digits, which equals exactly 3 bytes.

Networking and Core Concepts

Question

How many bytes does it take to represent the hexadecimal value OxFEDCBA?

Options

  • A12
  • B2
  • C3
  • D6

How the community answered

(32 responses)
  • A
    13% (4)
  • B
    6% (2)
  • C
    78% (25)
  • D
    3% (1)

Why each option

Each hexadecimal digit represents 4 bits (one nibble), so two hex digits equal one byte. The value OxFEDCBA has 6 hex digits, which equals exactly 3 bytes.

A12

12 confuses the number of bits per digit or total nibbles with bytes - it is not the correct byte count for a 6-digit hex value.

B2

2 bytes would only encode a 4-digit hexadecimal value (16 bits), which is insufficient to represent the 6-digit value OxFEDCBA.

C3Correct

The hexadecimal value 0xFEDCBA contains 6 individual hex digits (F, E, D, C, B, A). Each hex digit encodes 4 bits, so 6 digits represent 24 bits total. Dividing 24 bits by 8 yields exactly 3 bytes.

D6

6 is the count of hex digits in the value, not the byte count - each pair of hex digits forms one byte, so 6 digits equals 3 bytes, not 6.

Concept tested: Converting hexadecimal values to byte count

Topics

#hexadecimal#byte representation#number systems#data encoding

Community Discussion

No community discussion yet for this question.

Full GSEC Practice