Tips and tricks to pass the Certified Kubernetes Administrator exam

Get expert tips and strategies for acing the Certified Kubernetes Administrator exam. Learn about essential preparation techniques, and exam-taking techniques.

I recently passed my CKA exam and I would like to share with you some tips that might enable you to pass the exam. Here is my CKA certificate.

If you are looking for books to prepare for the exam have a look at this other story I wrote.

Booking

You need to allow 24h from when you schedule an exam to when the exam can take place. This includes any possible retakes. Keep that in mind if the expiration date is approaching.

A trick that I discovered only after have scheduled my exam. If you start one of the exam simulators, your due date for the exam will be moved forward of 4 days. You can use this to get some extra days to study up for the exam.

Taking the exam

• Official instructions for the exam

• Exam rules and policies

• You can click on the Launch exam up to 30 minutes before the scheduled start.

You need at least 5 minutes to install the software PSI Secure Browser

You need to provide a selfie and a picture of a government id with your signature

You need at least 10–15 minutes to scan the entire room including:

• Under the table

• The entire table surface including glasses and your phone if you have one. I had my phone in another room to be safe

• Behind your ears to prevent you from wearing hidden earphones

• Up your long sleeves (if you are wearing a jumper or a long sleeve shirt)

The instructions on your room setup are quite crazy including:

• No dual monitor or other electronics.

• Try to use an external USB camera to scan the room more easily than the integrated camera on your laptop.

During the exam

kubectl autocomplete is already configured

some useful aliases and commands.

Bear in mind that:

• k=kubectl is already configured

• Vim is already configured as above

• Kn and KX aliases are available at cheatsheet (which is part of the official documentation that you are allowed to browse)

When writing a manifest for a question use the file format <question number>.<resource>.yaml . For example 1.pod.yaml to store a manifest for a pod for question number 1. This way you can leave a question partially answered and go back to it later.

Before editing a manifest provided by the environment, back it up first with the file format <question number>.manifest.yaml.bak so that you can map the manifest to the question.

If you are asked to create bash scripts do not bother adding the shebang sequence #!/usr/bin/env bash or add execution permissions via chmod. This is a waste of time since scripts will be executed via sh script.sh

Official documentation links are provided for each question with the question description. This will save you from searching the relevant page yourself. Unfortunately, you might not be able to find the most relevant documentation in those provided links

The official Kubernetes documentation has external links pointing to other domains. Since you are not allowed to browse links other than kubernetes.io, and this requirement is currently not enforced via the browser, Before opening a link, point your mouse over the link to inspect the domain in the status bar before opening it. I accidentally opened some external links during my exams but closed them immediately.

You can flag a question to go back later in the exam environment

• No need to use the provided text editor to remember which questions you skipped or to write them down on a file

• Don’t get stuck trying to answer difficult questions, skip them to solve the easier ones. You can always go back to them

• The environment provides you with a calculator and a text editor for note taking. I didn't use any of that.

Useful keymaps

• SHIFT + CTRL + T to open a new tab in the terminal

• SHIFT + CTRL + C and SHIFT + CTRL + V to copy and paste

Results

Results are sent back 24h after the exam starting time via email and via the exam home page.