Which statement describes the effect of the -Pn option on Nmap scans?

• A. It enables host discovery
• B. It disables host discovery
• C. It enables verbose mode
• D. It runs NSE scripts

Answer: (B)

Host discovery vs. scanning is being tested here. The -Pn option tells Nmap to skip the step where it tries to determine which hosts are online. In other words, it disables host discovery and makes Nmap assume every target you specified is up, proceeding directly to port scanning. This is useful when discovery probes (like ping or ARP) are blocked by a firewall or when you already know the hosts are online and want to avoid the discovery phase to speed things up. It does not enable verbose mode and it does not run NSE scripts; those effects come from -v and --script, respectively.