How to fail your Kubernetes CK{AD,A,S} certifications

At the beginning of 2022, I attempted the Kubernetes certifications CKA and CKS, and failed on the first try.

With these experiences acquired on the “fail” of certifications, I offer you some tips to put all the chances on your side and fail! So read carefully what follows, at your own risk!

Before / Preparation for the exam

Overconfident

There were a few of us who were motivated to take the certification. A few friends and colleagues passed the exam with flying colors, even some of whom I didn’t even know were interested in the subject. If they passed, why not me? Plus, they’ve never used Kubernetes in production!

First observation: OK, they may not be experts, but they have worked hard, worked conscientiously, and are perhaps also used to taking this kind of certification, not me! This is a good starting point if you consider yourself good enough not to revise and be studious, it is a good start to anticipate failure!

Do not practice

The CKA and CKS are practical exams . Between 15 and 20 lab – type questions, no MCQs here. You must then be comfortable with the CLI and kubectl commands , such as:

• create apod
• scale adeployment
• configure theapi-server
• createnetwork-policies
• edit a file packageyaml
• etc.

If you don’t know how to do it instinctively, so much the better, a few searches on the Internet to find out what we’re talking about should be enough.

Don’t learn vim or kubectl shortcuts

To be more efficient, there are shortcuts under vimand kubectl, which save you precious time (yaml indentation, force stopping containers, etc.).

Also, you can generate manifests yamlwith the option --dry-runto already have a pre-filled base.

You should not use them, you would not want to save time on deleting resources, or editing files.

Don’t train with killer.sh

Since summer 2021, the Linux Foundation offers 2 free practice exams on the killer.sh platform , which are more difficult than the real exam. See the blog post here for more details.

These 2 sessions are the same, and you have 36 hours for each of them to take advantage of going to get as much information and details as possible on the questions asked, and check that everything works as you understood. The answers are explained if you can’t do it.

Don’t use it then, you might learn some interesting things!

Do not bookmark Kubernetes.io

In the exam guidelines, it is possible to have an additional tab of your browser open to search for documentation and examples on the official kubernetes.io website . Just don’t use it.

Okay, you’re itching, you’re still curious, you want to take a look. That’s fine with me, but make sure you haven’t browsed the site or planned bookmarks on the key elements of the certification (you’ll find some ready-made bookmarks on the Internet, but don’t use them or you’ll risk succeeding).

Use your 1st try as late as possible

Once you have purchased the certification, you have 1 year to pass it, and 2 attempts. The 2nd attempt must be passed within the year. You can then attempt the certification once, fail, attempt it a second time, and fail again, that makes a nice combo!

Why bother yourself so much, and just fail definitively on the first try, by taking the certification as late as possible? My advice: plan the date of the first try as late as possible, so you will be unable to use your “free retake”. What could be easier?

Forget that you have subscribed to the exam

This one is easy: buy a voucher to take the CKS, work on lots of other unrelated subjects during the year, and suddenly receive an email informing you that you only have a few days left to take the certification!

This is what happened to me… Only 1 month to prepare for the exam, during the end-of-year holiday period, with daily work, family management, and the 2nd attempt included!

Don’t put yourself in exam conditions

The CKA was my first professional life exam after my university degrees, “a few” years earlier. I forgot how stressful it could be. Here are some things to avoid putting yourself in the conditions of taking an exam:

• Don’t sleep, or sleep very little, and do everything you can to be as nervous as possible.
• Do not clean your desk/room, as you will be asked to do so on the day
• Use the lowest-end webcam possible, so the examiner cannot verify your identity.
• Plan a grueling day of work the day before (a good, crappy production) so that you are as tired as possible (also try to plan the exam late in the evening, even if it means being tired…)

During the examination

Here we are, it’s THE D- day , just a few moments left and you’re going to fail this exam! In case you’re not 100% sure of yourself, here are some additional tips.

Do not read the questions in full

Sometimes, there are hints that make your life easier written at the end of the questions. Knowing this, avoid reading them, just do what you are asked line by line.

Do not use k8s contexts

For each question, you are told which cluster you will need to work on, with different contexts. For example, you are asked to correct a deployment on cluster B, but you were on cluster A during the previous question.

If you don’t switch context, you will have a 100% chance of not finding the problematic deployment!

It sounds trivial , but I lost a lot of time due to context switching during my first CKA attempt ( yes, I was particularly stressed ).

Don’t save your work

When you are asked to create deployments or any other kubernetes resource, you can generate the manifest yamlto adapt it, replay it later, if you ever made a mistake and want to correct it.

No point in keeping these files in a corner, why go back to something that we think is wrong, that will be more to fail the certification.

Take your time

The exam lasts two hours. It’s not a race, take your time. Being optimistic, the exam has 15 questions, and you must have a score of at least 68%… That is at least 11 questions correct. Over 2 hours, that comes to 11 minutes per question, you’re wide open!

When it’s over, stop everything, right now.

In case you didn’t take into account the previous advice, that you answered all the questions and therefore you have time left, don’t waste any more time! Don’t reread yourself, don’t retest your manifests, it’s useless. Just ask the examiner to close the session as quickly as possible, and run away!

End of the story

With all these tips, I hope you fail as well as I did. That said, if you don’t want to, just do the opposite of what I wrote previously 😉

Fortunately, after all my mistakes and failures, I was rather upset and frustrated. So I decided to use my second attempt the week after my first certification: I was already in exam conditions, I had just come out of several days of intensive learning and revision, and I knew roughly where I had failed and I was able to work on the topics that I did not master enough or was not clear enough.

I can then summarize my failures as follows for each certification:

1. CKA : Not enough preparation and training in CLI. Also an overdose of self-confidence for the CKA, this being my first certification since university
2. CKS : Not enough preparation (I insist) and time, the period to take the exam was expiring quite quickly, and I knew full well that I was going to fail it. But I took this first attempt as an opportunity, to prepare myself as best as possible, to then succeed on the second attempt.

So I can say now, I am CKA and CKS certified, and all that preparation was worth it!

What I learned (conclusion)

Obviously, I hope you won’t take my advice literally, and will do the opposite of what I wrote if you really want to pass your CK{A,S} exams.

These failures are sometimes necessary, reminding us that we can make mistakes. But learning from these failures is part of life! Don’t feel inferior when you read all these success stories on social networks, everyone fails one day or another!

My last words will be to wish you good luck for your certifications. I hope you don’t fail, well, not too much 

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Coupon: use code TECK20 at checkout

Hurry Up: Offer Ends Soon.  

• Upon registration, you have ONE YEAR to schedule and complete the exam.
• The CKAD / CKA / CKS exam is conducted online and remotely proctored.
• You are allowed a maximum of 2 attempts to take the test. However, if you miss a scheduled exam for any reason, your second attempt will be invalidated.
• Free access to killer.sh for the CK(AD)/S practice exam.

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