Cisco Certified Network Professional Practice Test 2026 – Your All-in-One Guide to Exam Success!

When a router receives a packet destined for a host within the same subnet, it needs to determine how to deliver that packet efficiently. The correct procedure involves verifying the routing table to check if the destination is reachable and performing an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) request if the destination's hardware address is not already known.

The routing table contains entries that help the router identify the next-hop address for outgoing packets. If the packet's destination IP address exists in the same subnet, the router will check if it knows the MAC address of the destination. If it doesn't, it will initiate an ARP request to resolve the destination IP into a MAC address. This process is essential for enabling the router to encapsulate the packet in a data link frame correctly, allowing it to send the packet directly to the intended host within the subnet.

The other options do not reflect the proper action of the router in this context. For example, sending the packet to a neighboring router is unnecessary since the destination is within the same subnet, meaning the router can deliver it directly. Checking the MTU size is not typically a primary concern at this stage of processing a packet within the same subnet, and dropping the packet simply because the destination is unreachable does not apply here, as the router can