COMPTIA A+ Practice Exam 2026 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

An APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing) address is used when a device cannot obtain an IP address from a DHCP server. In this case, the device assigns itself an IP address in the range of 169.254.x.x. This range was specifically allocated by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for this purpose and should not be used for any other type of network communication.

The other options provided in the choices are incorrect because they belong to different IP address ranges that are commonly used in private networks.

A 192.168.x.x is a range of private IP addresses typically used in home or small office networks.

C: 10.x.x.x is a range of private IP addresses commonly used in larger corporate networks.

D: 172.16.x.x is a range of private IP addresses typically used in medium sized networks.

Since these options do not fall within the range of 169.254.x.x, they cannot be the correct answer to the given question.