The first routing decision made on an IP packet is made by which of the following?

A.
the user

B.
the gateway

C.
the workstation sending it

D.
the workstation receiving it

Explanation:
The primary use of the subnet mask (from our perspective at the Near Side of the ‘Net) is for
workstations to determine whether or not the server or workstation they’re trying to talk to (the
“destination IP address”) is on the same subnet as itself; if the destination IP address is on your
subnet, you’ll send the IP packet directly to the other computer via the Ethernet or Token Ring (or
whatever) network you’re on, without bothering the router… at all! The first routing decision made
on an IP packet is made by the workstation sending it; it decides whether or not to send the packet
to a router.