When given multiple routes to the same destination, routers use what is called _____ to determine the most trusted route.

• A. Metric
• B. Hop count
• C. Administrative Distance
• D. Bandwidth

Answer: (C)

Administrative Distance is the measure that tells a router how trustworthy a source of routing information is. When a destination can be reached via more than one route from different sources (for example, one learned from a dynamic protocol and another from a static entry), the router compares these sources by their administrative distance and installs the route with the lowest value—the most trusted source. This is why the router ends up with the “best” route based on trust, not just path metrics. Metrics like hop count or bandwidth are used to compare routes from the same source, but they don’t determine which source is trusted when multiple sources are available.