LTTS_Pre-assessment for layering LTTS_Pre-assessment for layering The number of attempts remaining is 1 1 / 30 1. An NR UE reports CQI corresponding to a high MCS during a quiet interval. Immediately afterward, an external interferer turns on and remains active for several slots. The gNB continues to use the old MCS until a newer CQI arrives, producing a burst of HARQ NACKs. Which mechanism best describes the problem? a. CQI is a long-term path-loss metric and is not intended to reflect interference or supported modulation/coding. b. HARQ NACKs prove that the UE's RSRP dropped, because interference cannot change BLER if received power is unchanged. c. Once an MCS is selected for a UE, NR requires it to remain fixed until RRC reconfiguration. d. Link adaptation is temporarily operating on outdated channel-quality information, so the selected MCS is too aggressive for the new SINR. 2 / 30 2. An LTE cell becomes heavily loaded and applies access barring to ordinary mobile-originated data. Two idle UEs try to access at the same time: one is starting a background data session and the other is making an emergency call. The network wants to suppress nonessential access without blocking emergency service. Which RRC/NAS access behavior is most appropriate? a. The ordinary data attempt can be barred according to access-control rules, while emergency access is treated with the applicable higher-priority/emergency exception. b. RRC establishment cause is used only after the bearer is established, so it cannot influence access treatment. c. All access attempts must be blocked identically whenever the cell is loaded, including emergency calls. d. Emergency traffic must first establish a best-effort data bearer and then request priority through RLC. 3 / 30 3. A 5G NR UE uses PDCP duplication over two radio legs for a latency-critical bearer. Because one leg is temporarily congested, the two copies of the same PDCP PDU arrive at very different times. Upper layers receive each packet only once, and no application duplicate is observed. Which PDCP behavior is primarily responsible? a. RLC AM must deliver both copies to the application and relies on TCP to remove one. b. PDCP duplicate detection/discard recognizes the same PDCP sequence number and removes the later duplicate before delivery upward. c. MAC HARQ merges the two independently routed PDCP copies into one transport block before RLC sees them. d. PDCP duplication disables sequence numbering, so duplicates are identified only from IP addresses. 4 / 30 4. An NR UE reliably transmits small HARQ-ACK payloads on PUCCH near the cell edge. After the UCI payload grows because CSI is added, the configured PUCCH transmission begins to fail frequently. PDSCH remains healthy and the UE is not moving. Which design change is most appropriate? a. Use a PUCCH format/resource suitable for the larger UCI payload and coverage requirement, potentially with more symbols or repetition where configured. b. Keep the same short PUCCH resource because UCI payload size has no effect on coding or required resources. c. Move HARQ-ACK to the SSB because SSB is the normal uplink control channel in weak coverage. d. Increase PDSCH modulation order, because downlink spectral efficiency directly improves uplink control reliability. 5 / 30 5. An NR UE powers on and detects synchronization signals from a cell with strong RSRP. It reads system information and finds that the desired PLMN is not offered by the cell, while another nearby cell broadcasts the desired PLMN. What is the correct interpretation? a. RLC UM determines PLMN suitability based on packet-loss rate. b. PLMN information is carried only after RRC connection establishment, so the idle UE cannot use it for selection. c. Strong radio power alone is insufficient; PLMN/system-information suitability must also be satisfied, so the UE should prefer a suitable cell offering the desired network. d. Any cell with the strongest SSB must be selected even if it does not broadcast the desired PLMN. 6 / 30 6. An NR UE has new uplink data but no configured grant and no suitable PUSCH opportunity. It attempts to send a Scheduling Request on PUCCH, but the SR is repeatedly missed because the configured PUCCH resource is in deep fade. The gNB therefore does not provide a dynamic grant. What is the direct consequence? a. The gNB automatically schedules maximum PUSCH bandwidth whenever an SR is missed. b. A missed SR immediately deletes the PDCP SDUs in the UE buffer. c. SR carries the full BSR payload, so losing it corrupts the gNB's RLC sequence-number state. d. The UE can remain uplink-buffered without a grant because the gNB is unaware that the UE needs resources until another access/reporting mechanism succeeds. 7 / 30 7. An idle NR UE is known to be registered and reachable, but it repeatedly misses paging. RF coverage is good. Tracing shows that the UE and network disagree on the UE's paging occasion/DRX-related configuration, so the UE is asleep when the page is transmitted. What is the most likely RRC-level problem? a. A paging-cycle/occasion configuration mismatch is causing the UE to monitor the wrong time locations for paging. b. Paging failures imply that the UE's RLC AM window is full. c. Paging is delivered on PUSCH, so the issue must be uplink power control. d. An idle UE monitors every downlink slot continuously, so paging configuration cannot affect reception. 8 / 30 8. An RLC receiver gets PDUs with sequence numbers 100, 101, 103, 104; SN 102 is missing. It waits for reordering/reassembly, but 102 does not arrive before the relevant timer expires. Data above the gap is then handled according to the RLC mode and state. Which problem is the timer designed to prevent? a. PDCP ciphering-key reuse whenever RLC SNs are nonconsecutive. b. MAC scheduler starvation caused by a low CQI report. c. Indefinite head-of-line waiting for a missing sequence number when later data has already arrived. d. Excessive UE transmit power caused by too many consecutive sequence numbers. 9 / 30 9. An LTE UE at the cell edge has acceptable downlink quality but begins to show intermittent PUSCH decoding failures. The eNB sees that the UE's uplink arrival time is drifting toward the edge of the expected timing window. The downlink RSRP is stable, and the UE is not power limited. After a timing-advance update, uplink BLER returns to normal. What best explains the failure before the update? a. The UE's uplink OFDM symbols were becoming misaligned at the eNB, increasing inter-symbol/inter-carrier interference and degrading PUSCH demodulation. b. The timing drift automatically forces the UE to lower its uplink modulation order, which alone caused the BLER. c. Stable downlink RSRP rules out any timing-related uplink impairment. d. Timing advance controls only downlink scheduling timing and has no impact on uplink orthogonality. 10 / 30 10. A UE has two uplink logical channels: a delay-sensitive signaling flow with high priority and a large best-effort data flow with lower priority. Both are backlogged, and the gNB gives a small uplink grant. Which MAC behavior should normally occur? a. MAC must split every grant equally between all logical channels regardless of configured priority. b. RLC sequence number determines priority, so the oldest numerical SN always consumes the entire grant. c. Logical-channel prioritization allocates the limited grant according to configured priority and prioritised-bit-rate rules, favoring the higher-priority eligible data. d. PDCP selects PRBs directly and bypasses MAC when signaling data is present. 11 / 30 11. Several UEs attempt initial access to the same 5G NR cell after a temporary outage. The gNB detects many PRACH transmissions with adequate received power, but a subset of UEs repeatedly restart random access. For those UEs, Msg2 is sometimes received, yet contention resolution later fails. Increasing UE PRACH transmit power does not materially improve success. What is the most likely radio-access reason? a. Contention resolution failure means the UE used an incorrect PDSCH modulation order for Msg2. b. Multiple UEs are selecting the same contention-based PRACH preamble in the same occasion, so they can receive the same response and later collide during contention resolution. c. A strong PRACH signal forces the gNB to reject the corresponding preamble because high received power is treated as interference. d. The PRACH cyclic prefix is always too short whenever many UEs access simultaneously, independent of cell size or format. 12 / 30 12. A 5G NR UE was released from RRC_CONNECTED into RRC_INACTIVE with its context retained. A few seconds later, new uplink data arrives while the UE is still within the area where the inactive context is valid. Which procedure best exploits RRC_INACTIVE? a. The UE can transmit user-plane data immediately without any RRC resume signaling. b. The UE sends an RLC STATUS PDU directly from RRC_INACTIVE to reactivate the cell. c. The UE sends an RRCResumeRequest so the retained context can be resumed with less signaling than a fresh RRC setup. d. The UE must always perform a full RRCSetup because RRC_INACTIVE stores no access-stratum context. 13 / 30 13. An RLC AM entity has a large SDU ready, but the MAC grants only a small number of bytes in the next transmission opportunity. The RLC layer sends part of the information and later continues it when more grant becomes available. Which function is being exercised? a. MAC must discard the SDU because RLC is not allowed to segment data. b. RRC divides the IP packet into OFDM symbols before giving it to RLC. c. PDCP ciphering is shrinking the payload until it fits the grant. d. RLC segmentation/re-segmentation adapts the data unit to the size of the MAC transmission opportunity. 14 / 30 14. A 5G NR PDSCH transport block is first transmitted with a high MCS and fails. The gNB retransmits the same HARQ process using a different redundancy version, and the UE successfully decodes after combining the two receptions even though neither reception alone had enough quality. What enabled the successful decode? a. HARQ soft combining accumulated complementary coded information from the original transmission and retransmission, improving the effective decoding reliability. b. The second transmission bypasses LDPC/turbo decoding and is therefore inherently easier to decode. c. Changing redundancy version changes the RNTI, allowing the UE to use a stronger scrambling sequence. d. The retransmission caused the UE to discard all soft information from the first transmission and decode only the second copy. 15 / 30 15. An NR UE has a large uplink application backlog. The gNB continues to schedule only small grants because the last Buffer Status Report indicated little data. The UE's buffer grew significantly after that report. Which MAC mechanism should update the scheduler's view? a. Timing advance is the MAC field that tells the gNB how many uplink bytes are waiting. b. The UE must wait for an RRC re-establishment before buffer information can change. c. A new Buffer Status Report should report the current amount of buffered uplink data for the relevant logical-channel group. d. PDCP should send a CQI report because CQI represents queued bytes. 16 / 30 16. A UE detects a very strong LTE cell, but system information marks the cell as barred. A weaker neighboring cell is not barred and otherwise meets selection criteria. What should the UE do? a. Treat the barred cell as unsuitable for normal camping and continue searching/reselecting according to the applicable rules. b. Camp on the barred cell because RSRP always overrides cell-barring information. c. Ignore the barring bit once synchronization has succeeded. d. Use the barred cell only for RLC AM bearers while using the other cell for RLC UM. 17 / 30 17. A 5G NR FR2 UE is served by a narrow beam. While the UE turns a corner, the serving-beam RSRP drops sharply for a few tens of milliseconds, but another beam from the same cell becomes strong. The UE initiates beam-failure recovery and service resumes without an RRC re-establishment. Which interpretation is most accurate? a. The UE must have lost synchronization with the entire cell, because beam failure and radio-link failure are identical procedures. b. The serving beam became unusable, but a candidate beam from the same cell was available, allowing beam-failure recovery without declaring a full radio-link failure. c. The recovery occurred because HARQ retransmission changes the physical direction of the gNB transmit beam automatically. d. Any serving-beam loss in FR2 necessarily requires RRC re-establishment because beams cannot be changed below RRC. 18 / 30 18. An NR UE in RRC_IDLE sends an RRCSetupRequest and starts the relevant establishment timer. Due to downlink interference, it never decodes an RRCSetup or RRCReject. The timer expires. What is the expected interpretation of this event? a. The UE should transmit user-plane PUSCH immediately because lack of RRCSetup means implicit acceptance. b. The RRC connection-establishment attempt has timed out; the UE must follow the specified failure/backoff or cell-selection behavior rather than assuming a connection exists. c. The expiry is only a PDCP event and has no effect on RRC state. d. The UE becomes RRC_CONNECTED automatically when the establishment timer expires. 19 / 30 19. A gNB wants to configure 4-layer downlink MIMO and 256-QAM for a newly connected UE. The UE capability information indicates support for only two layers and no 256-QAM on the serving band. What should the network do? a. Use RLC AM retransmissions to make unsupported 256-QAM decodable. b. Force the configuration; the UE will emulate unsupported RF chains in PDCP. c. Ignore capability signaling because any NR UE is required to support every optional MIMO rank and modulation on every band. d. Respect the reported UE capabilities and configure only features/combinations the UE supports. 20 / 30 20. A real-time gaming flow is carried on an NR bearer for which occasional packet loss is preferable to late retransmissions. The operator compares RLC AM and RLC UM. Under bursty radio loss, AM reduces packet loss but produces occasional large latency spikes. Which RLC choice better matches the stated service objective? a. RLC AM is always lower latency because every lost packet is retransmitted until success. b. RLC UM is often more suitable because it avoids RLC retransmission delay when timeliness is more important than perfect delivery. c. RLC UM guarantees zero loss by relying on unlimited HARQ attempts. d. RLC mode changes modulation order directly, so UM should be selected only for 64-QAM. 21 / 30 21. An NR DRB uses RLC AM. A PDSCH transmission fails at PHY and is retransmitted by HARQ. After several HARQ attempts, the MAC gives up and the RLC PDU is still missing. Later, RLC retransmits the missing data successfully. Why are both mechanisms present? a. RLC AM and HARQ are identical mechanisms, so one of them must be disabled for standards compliance. b. HARQ provides fast local retransmission, while RLC AM supplies a longer-timescale reliability mechanism if lower-layer HARQ ultimately cannot deliver the PDU. c. HARQ guarantees lossless delivery, so any RLC retransmission indicates a ciphering fault. d. RLC retransmission occurs before HARQ and replaces all physical-layer retransmissions. 22 / 30 22. Two neighboring 5G NR TDD cells use the same carrier but have independently configured DL/UL slot patterns. UEs near the border experience severe uplink BLER only during certain slots. Their PUSCH power is sufficient, but the serving gNB measures bursts of very strong interference exactly when the neighboring cell transmits downlink at high power. What is the most likely cause? a. UE timing advance error, because timing misalignment always appears only in slots where a neighbor schedules downlink. b. An SSB raster mismatch, because neighboring-cell SSB placement determines PUSCH interference. c. Normal HARQ soft combining, because retransmissions intentionally raise interference on neighboring cells. d. Cross-link interference caused by unsynchronized TDD directions, with the neighboring gNB's downlink interfering with the serving gNB's uplink reception. 23 / 30 23. A connected LTE UE is moving from Cell A toward Cell B. Cell B becomes a few dB stronger than Cell A and remains better for the configured time-to-trigger. The network receives the expected measurement report and initiates handover. Which event most closely matches this behavior? a. Event A3: a neighboring cell becomes offset-better than the serving cell for the configured hysteresis/time-to-trigger conditions. b. Event A2, which reports only that the serving cell has become worse than a threshold without comparing a neighbor. c. Event B2, which is an inter-RAT event and is not the normal same-RAT neighbor-better trigger. d. Event A1, which is specifically triggered when the serving cell becomes better than an absolute threshold. 24 / 30 24. An LTE UE loses the serving radio link while in RRC_CONNECTED. It still has a valid security/context state and quickly finds a suitable cell belonging to the same network. The UE wants to restore the connection faster than starting a completely new session. Which RRC procedure is most appropriate? a. Only a Tracking Area Update can restore the radio bearer; RRC has no recovery procedure. b. PDCP duplication automatically recreates the RRC connection without signaling. c. Initial RRC connection establishment with no reference to the old context is always required after any radio-link failure. d. RRC connection re-establishment, because the UE is attempting to recover an existing connection/context after radio-link failure. 25 / 30 25. A cell-edge NR UE is already transmitting near its maximum total power. The scheduler suddenly doubles the number of PUSCH PRBs while keeping a demanding MCS. The UE's total transmit power cannot increase further, and PUSCH BLER rises even though path loss is unchanged. Which physical-layer effect is most likely? a. With a fixed maximum total UE power spread over more PRBs, the power spectral density per PRB drops, reducing received SINR for the scheduled codeword. b. PUSCH BLER must be unrelated to UE power because only PUCCH is subject to a maximum transmit-power constraint. c. Doubling PRBs changes the uplink carrier frequency, causing an unavoidable path-loss increase. d. More PRBs always increase per-PRB power because NR power control scales total power linearly without a UE power limit. 26 / 30 26. A 5G NR UE is connected on a 100 MHz n78 carrier at 3.5 GHz with 30 kHz SCS. The UE enters a high-speed train section. The gNB observes that RSRP is almost unchanged, but SINR varies quickly, CQI drops, and PDSCH HARQ retransmissions increase. DM-RS is still detected and transmit power is stable. PDSCH had been using 256-QAM with a high code rate. Which physical-layer mechanism most likely explains the BLER increase? a. Unchanged RSRP proves the propagation channel is stable, so the failures must originate only from RLC retransmission behavior. b. Correct DM-RS detection guarantees accurate channel estimation for the whole slot, so Doppler cannot materially affect PDSCH decoding. c. Rapid channel variation from mobility is making channel estimation/equalization age quickly, so the previously selected high-order MCS is no longer robust. d. Using 30 kHz SCS inherently reduces received signal power during mobility and directly causes the BLER increase. 27 / 30 27. A gNB schedules a UE over a wide 100 MHz NR carrier. Wideband CQI is moderate and stable, yet BLER is high whenever PDSCH is allocated in one particular portion of the band. Spectrum measurements show a narrowband interferer affecting only that region, while the rest of the band is clean. Which action is most directly supported by the physical-layer evidence? a. Disable DM-RS on the affected PRBs so that more REs are available for coded data. b. Increase timing advance, because localized frequency interference is normally caused by uplink timing misalignment. c. Increase the MCS because the average wideband CQI is stable and therefore all PRBs must have similar SINR. d. Use frequency-selective scheduling and, where available, subband channel-quality information to avoid or lower the MCS on the interfered PRBs. 28 / 30 28. A battery-powered NR UE uses connected-mode DRX. Downlink packets arriving just after the UE leaves its on-duration are often delivered tens of milliseconds later, although radio quality and scheduler capacity are good. What is the most likely reason for the added delay? a. The UE is sleeping for part of the DRX cycle and may not monitor PDCCH until the next configured active period. b. The UE cannot remain RRC connected while DRX is enabled. c. DRX changes the PDSCH coding scheme to repetition coding, which always adds exactly one RLC RTT. d. DRX causes the gNB to stop buffering downlink packets, so they must be retransmitted from the core network. 29 / 30 29. A low-latency NR bearer is configured with a short PDCP discard timer. During a brief radio outage, packets accumulate above RLC. When radio conditions recover, some older packets are never transmitted even though newer packets are delivered. What is the most likely explanation? a. RLC AM is required to retransmit every PDCP SDU indefinitely, so PDCP cannot discard queued data. b. The PDCP discard timer expired for the stale packets, so they were discarded instead of consuming radio resources after their latency budget had already been exceeded. c. The discard timer controls only ciphering-key refresh and has no effect on queued user data. d. Expired PDCP packets are always converted automatically into RRC signaling messages. 30 / 30 30. An LTE UE near a cell border repeatedly hands over between two cells as fast fading makes their measured levels alternate by 1-2 dB. There is no coverage hole, but signaling load and packet interruption increase. Which tuning change is most likely to reduce the ping-pong behavior? a. Increase appropriate hysteresis and/or time-to-trigger so a small, short-lived neighbor advantage does not immediately cause handover. b. Disable measurement reporting entirely while keeping handover enabled. c. Increase the RLC retransmission threshold because ping-pong is caused by RLC sequence-number wrap. d. Set hysteresis and time-to-trigger to zero so every instantaneous fluctuation is followed immediately. Your score is