When you go to Starbucks, you note that your IP address is 192.168.104.2, and that your netmask is 255.255.240.0. . How many bits are in the host portion of this subnet

The correct answer is 4 bits.

Explanation:

First we must identify what class it belongs to and we see the first octet on the left side of the IP address, which is 192 and we can determine that it is a Class C address, therefore its mask is:

Default mask 255.255.255.0 => 24 bits.

IP mask 255.255.255.240 => 28 bits.

We can conclude that I borrow 4 bits to calculate subnets.

We can conclude the following:

16 subnets maximum.