Cisco Certified Network Professional 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

During a router's route table lookup, the router examines its routing table to determine the best path for forwarding incoming packets to their destination. This process involves checking the destination IP address of the packet against the routing table entries.

When it comes to performing an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) lookup, this typically occurs after the router has determined the appropriate next-hop address for the packet. If the next-hop address is on the same local network, the router needs to map that IP address to a MAC address to encapsulate the packet in a frame for delivery.

Thus, while the route table lookup itself does not directly involve ARP, this step is indeed a consequence of the routing process. If the routing table indicates that the packet should be sent to a local subnet and the MAC address of the next-hop device is not already known, an ARP lookup will be initiated to resolve the IP address to a MAC address. This is why the option regarding the ARP lookup is closely related to the actions taken after the route table has been consulted.

In contrast, encrypting the packet, initiating a new session, or checking the source of the packet are not functions associated with performing a route table lookup. These actions pertain to different aspects of networking, such as