A national retail chain needs to design an IP addressing scheme to support a nationwide network. The company needs a minimum of 300 sub-networks and a maximum of 50 host addresses per subnet. Working with only one Class B address, which of the following subnet masks will support an appropriate addressing scheme? (Choose two.)

A.
255.255.255.0

B.
255.255.255.128

C.
255.255.252.0

D.
255.255.255.224

E.
255.255.255.192

F.
255.255.248.0

Explanation:
Subnetting is used to break the network into smaller more efficient subnets to prevent excessive rates of Ethernet packet collision in a large network. Such subnets can be arranged hierarchically, with the organization’s network address space (see also Autonomous System) partitioned into a tree-like structure. Routers are used to manage traffic and constitute borders between subnets.

A routing prefix is the sequence of leading bits of an IP address that precede the portion of the address used as host identifier. In IPv4 networks, the routing prefix is often expressed as a "subnet mask", which is a bit mask covering the number of bits used in the prefix. An IPv4 subnet mask is frequently expressed in quad-dotted decimal representation, e.g., 255.255.255.0 is the subnet mask for the 192.168.1.0 network with a 24-bit routing prefix (192.168.1.0/24).