Turbocharge Your IT Journey: Ace the Cisco Certified Network Pro Test 2026 – Network Ninja Style!

The correct choice identifies the states that a router can transition through while participating in the Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP). HSRP is a Cisco proprietary redundancy protocol that provides high network availability by ensuring that a standby router can take over in the event of a failure of the active router.

In HSRP, the states "Listen," "Speak," and "Active" are crucial for its operation:

- **Active**: This state indicates that the router is currently the primary device handling traffic for the virtual IP address. It is responsible for forwarding the packets to the appropriate destinations on behalf of the network.

- **Speak**: A router in this state is actively participating in the HSRP election process. It is capable of becoming the active router and is communicating with other routers to determine its role in the HSRP group.

- **Listen**: In this state, a router does not forward traffic but is listening to the HSRP messages from the other routers. It maintains the backup capabilities and waits to take over if it needs to transition to the active state.

Understanding these states is essential for network professionals as they troubleshoot and maintain HSRP functionality within network infrastructures, ensuring high availability and resilience. The other choices