Cisco Enterprise Network Core Technologies (ENCOR) Practice Exam

In the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), the concept of bridge priority plays a crucial role in determining which switch will be elected as the Root Bridge in a network. The lower the bridge priority value, the more preferred that switch is to become the Root Bridge. A default bridge priority value is 32,768, and this is the baseline against which other values are compared.

In this context, a value of 16,384 represents a lower preference compared to the default of 32,768. When evaluating the priority values, a switch with a priority of 16,384 is therefore more favorable to be elected as the Root Bridge than a switch with a higher value such as 32,768 or any other value greater than it. This is because the election process in STP chooses the switch with the lowest bridge priority value first, and in a tie, it will then use MAC addresses to break the tie.

To summarize, a bridge priority of 16,384 indicates a lower preference for a switch to be elected as the Root Bridge because it is a smaller value compared to the default priority, thereby making it more likely to be chosen in the election process.