Which characteristic describes multicast messages?

• A. They are sent to a select group of hosts.
• B. They are sent to all hosts on a network.
• C. They must be acknowledged.
• D. They are sent to a single destination.

Answer: (A)

Multicast messages are designed for one-to-many delivery to a specific group of receivers that have joined the multicast group. Only members of that group receive the data, and routers forward the traffic only to segments where listeners are present, making efficient use of bandwidth. This differs from broadcasting, which would reach every host on the network, and from sending to a single destination. Multicast typically uses a connectionless transport such as UDP, which does not require an acknowledgment from each recipient; any reliability needed is handled at the application layer rather than by the multicast delivery itself.