How to Pass the CKAD Exam

Edidiong Asikpo

Published in

Ambassador Labs

12 min readApr 29, 2022

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I recently took and passed the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) exam created by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and The Linux Foundation. I learned a lot from taking the CKAD exam, so I decided to write an article to help you gain a CKAD certification.

This article will help you understand what you should do to pass the CKAD exam. It includes Kubernetes learning resources, CKAD exam tips that nobody tells you about, practical examples, and more!

Prerequisites — What you should know before taking the CKAD exam

To pass the CKAD exam, you need to have two things; intermediate knowledge of Kubernetes and an understanding of what to expect just before and during the exams.

There are many educational resources on learning Kubernetes effectively. There are even resources centered around teaching you only the aspects of Kubernetes that you’ll come across during the CKAD exam. But an important educational resource that isn’t shared often is what you should expect just before and during the exams.

Based on my experience with preparing, taking, and passing the CKAD exam, I’ve concluded that having just an intermediate understanding of Kubernetes may not be enough to let you pass the exam, especially if you haven’t written a Kubernetes certification exam before. Knowing what to expect just before and during the exam and your knowledge of Kubernetes gives you an extra edge.

To ensure you have that extra edge, the following sections in this guide will cover the Kubernetes knowledge required, resources to acquire those skills, and what you should know and do just before and during the CKAD exam.

CKAD exam curriculum and learning resources

Kubernetes is a very vast technology with so many parts and components. So, it would unrealistic to include every single aspect of Kubernetes in a certification exam. That’s why every Kubernetes certification exam is tailored towards specific aspects of Kubernetes.

Here are the aspects of Kubernetes you should focus on when preparing for the CKAD exam and some resources that will help you understand them:

Application Design and Build (20%)

In the exam, you’ll be required to design, build, and modify container images in a Kubernetes cluster. You may also be asked to create a single and/or multi-container pod, utilize persistent and ephemeral volumes, and create jobs.

This part of the curriculum is one of the core things anybody who intends to pass the CKAD exam should know, as it serves as a good foundation for the more complex aspects of Kubernetes.

Here are some resources I recommend:

Application Deployment (20%)

As the name implies, this section of the curriculum is centered around your testing your knowledge of deploying in Kubernetes. From understanding how to perform rolling updates to using Helm to deploy existing packages and the ability to use deployment strategies like the blue/green and canary.

Here are some resources I recommend:

Application Observability and maintenance (15%)

This part of the curriculum aims to make you understand API deprecations and debugging in Kubernetes. It also covers how to implement probes and health checks to be able to monitor your Kubernetes applications.

Here are some resources I recommend:

Application Environment, Configuration, and Security (25%)

You should be able to discover and use resources that extend Kubernetes (CRD) and understand authentication, authorization, and admission control. In addition to that, you should also understand ConfigMaps, secrets, ServiceAccounts, and SecurityContexts.

Here are some resources I recommend:

Services and Networking (20%)

Here, you are supposed to demonstrate a basic understanding of Network Policies, be able to provide and troubleshoot access to applications via services and use Ingress rules to expose applications.

Here are some resources I recommend:

PS: If none of the resources shared above does the trick for you, feel free to use your preferred search engine to find other Kubernetes learning resources.

Tracking Your Learning Journey

The official CNCF GitHub repository has the exam curriculum explained above in bullet points. So, instead of just reading the curriculum above, go to the CNCF CKAD repository, copy the curriculum and paste it into a Google Doc. Then use the checkbox feature on Google Docs to track your learning journey by continuously marking out the sections you’ve completed.

This will help you have a mental picture of your progress and also let you know when you are ready to take the exam. You are not ready for the CKAD exam if you’ve completed only two sections. But if you’ve completed all five sections, then you are ready!

As you may have noticed, each section of the CKAD curriculum is assigned a certain weight (e.g., 20%, 15%). The higher the weight, the higher the chances of questions from that section showing up during the exams and also being a high weight question.

How to solve CKAD exam questions faster

Speed is vital if you want to pass the CKAD exam. You may know a lot about Kubernetes, but if you don’t solve the questions quickly, you won’t be able to complete most of the questions in 2 hours and eventually not pass the exam. Here are some great tips to help you solve CKAD exam questions faster.

Use Imperative Commands as much as you can! Imperative commands can help get one-time tasks done quickly and generate a definition template easily. This will save you a great amount of time during the exam. I wrote an article explaining in detail the Kubernetes Object management techniques. If you want to delve deeper into when and how to use either the imperative or declarative approach during your CKAD exam, I recommend checking it out.
Bookmark the Kubernetes documentation! The Kubernetes documentation is the only website you’ll be allowed to use during the CKAD exam. Instead of always searching for something on the docs, bookmark every Kubernetes documentation that talks about the usage of the concepts included in the CKAD exam curriculum. This will make you find what you need faster.

Know how to use grep! Understanding how and when to use the grep command can be very handy to help you find certain information before proceeding to solve a task or confirm if you performed a task successfully. For instance, you may be asked to change the label of an existing pod from app=vote-bot to cell=vote-bot. Instead of manually describing each pod to check their labels, you can use this grep command kubectl -n emojivoto get pods — show-labels | grep app=vote-bot to quickly find it. Here’s a great article on how to use grep.

Familiarize yourself with the Vim editor! One of the top CKAD and CKA exam tips received from 10 people who passed the exam was understanding how to use Vim. If you don’t already know, Vim is a free and open-source text editor that can be used directly from a command-line interface, even though it also has a graphical interface. If you don’t understand how to use Vim, you will end up being stuck on a particular task longer than you should be, and like I pointed out several times in this article — speed is vital! This article covers different scenarios where you’ll need to use Vim during the CKAD exam, and various Vim commands you know. You should check it out!
Practice in a very similar environment! Almost every CKAD exam resource explains the importance of continuously practicing before taking the exam. But they fail to include the context of you practicing in an environment similar to the CKAD exam. What do I mean? During your CKAD exam, you’ll not be allowed to listen to music, drink coffee, stretch, rest or do any stress-relieving thing. You’ll have to sit still and take the exam for two hours straight. So, if you’ve never tried a practice run for two straight hours without pausing or resting, the exam will be very stressful for you, and you’ll not be able to solve the exam questions as fast as required. My manager once told me about the importance of practicing in an environment similar to what you are preparing for. For instance, if you’re expected to give a speech for 20 minutes at a tech event, your practice runs shouldn’t last for an hour. If it does, there’s a high chance you won’t be able to finish your speech in 20 minutes during the real presentation. But when you ensure your practice runs last for at least 20–23 minutes, your body becomes tailored to that experience (time, speed, etc.), thereby making it easier for you to replicate it at the tech event. This mindset should also be applied during your preparation for the CKAD exam! Use platforms like killer.sh or CKAD exam exercises like Dimitris-Ilias Gkanatsios to practice for 2 hours with no breaks and time yourself to finish a good number of questions within that time.

You should do these things just before taking the CKAD exam

In addition to your knowledge of Kubernetes, there are certain non-technical things that you need to do before taking the CKAD exam. These things will give you an extra edge and increase your chances of passing the exam.

Clean up your workstation! Just before you start the CKAD exam, a proctor (the person who will be watching you via your webcam throughout the exam) will look through your workstation to ensure there’s nobody in the room and that nothing incriminating can be found on your table. To ensure you don’t have any issues during this period, remove everything from your table and room before it is time for the proctor to view them, so they quickly do the inspection and give you the approval to start taking the CKAD exam.
Ask the proctor to be your timer: It turns out that there’s no visible timer in the CKAD exam environment. All you see is a green line moving, but there’s no way to tell whether you have 1hr or 30 minutes left. This isn’t a great user experience as it can make you lose track of time or not know how much time you have to complete the exam. To solve this problem, ask your proctor to notify you when you are 1 hour 30 minutes in, 1 hour in, 30 minutes in, and 5 minutes in via the chat. You must remember to ask your proctor to do this politely as they are not obligated to inform you about the remaining time you have.
Calm down and take a deep breath! Seriously, you need to calm down. You’ve already spent a great amount of time preparing for this exam, and I strongly believe you have the power to push through. Remember that the proctor probably doesn’t know Kubernetes, so don’t feel insecure that you’ve taken 2 minutes longer to answer a simple question. Just take a deep breath, calm down and do your best. Even if you fell during the first try, you’ll have access to do a free retake.

You should do these things while taking the CKAD exam

The exam day can be intense because the moment you’ve been preparing for is finally here. The pressure could make you not remember to do certain things or not be as fast as you practised. Here are some tips to help you stay on track and in control on the exam day.

Write down the number of tasks & their respective weights on the notepad provided during the exam: Every question you’ll be asked to answer weighs between 3% to 9%. When you get access to the exam portal, you should first write down the number of tasks and their respective weights on the notepad provided in the portal.

You will then have to keep updating this notepad with the questions you’ve answered correctly, ain’t sure about, or couldn’t solve during your exam. This will help you note down the questions you should revisit before your time elapses and will also give you a better idea of what your results would look like because you know which questions you solved very well and the ones you didn’t.

Solve questions with a higher weight first: Remember that your time is limited, and you may not be able to answer all the questions. So, if you can solve 10 questions with a higher weight over 10 questions with a lower weight, you will reach the pass mark. This tip here is one of the most important. You shouldn’t forget this. Make sure you solve questions with a higher weight first before moving to questions with a lower weight.
Use your time effectively! The pass mark for the CKAD exam is 66%, and to reach that mark, you need to solve as many questions as possible. Hence, the need to use your time effectively. Using your time effectively means not spending than don’t spend more than 5 minutes on one question and only attempting a question once. If you tried solving a question and it didn’t work on the first try, leave it and move to another question. In my opinion, troubleshooting should be done after you’ve attempted all the questions. Remember, your goal is to pass the exams (66% mark) and not get 100% out of 100% (for the record, this isn’t a bad thing. But the overall goal should be to pass the exam).
Take your time to read the questions: As much as being fast is important, you also need to ensure that you take your time to read the questions in order to fully understand what’s required and act on it.
Always crosscheck! After completing a task during the CKAD exam, always cross-check that you did it correctly. For instance, if you were tasked to create a pod in the emojivoto namespace, you should run the kubectl get pods -n emojivoto command and confirm that the pod you created exists and has a status of Running.

Every question requires switching to a specific context or namespace: You must read and apply the instructions regarding switching context. Even though the context looks like the one you used in the previous question, still copy and paste the command on the CLI to be on the save side. Here are some kubectl commands you should know to navigate this: Use the kubectl config view command to view the different clusters in the exam’s dev environment. To know the current config, you are running on, run kubectl config current-context. To switch between namespaces, use this command: kubectl config set-context — current — namespace <insert namespace name>. If you are ever confused with what commands to run, use the kubectl --help flag command. It goes a long way!
Before taking the CKAD exam, I asked ten people who took and passed the exam to share a tip that would increase my chances of passing the exam. Check it out — CKAD and CKA Exam Tips from 10 People Who Passed the Exam.

Conclusion

Taking and passing the CKAD exam will help you stand out in the Kubernetes ecosystem.

This article covers my experience preparing for and passing the CKAD exam. Of course, different things work for different people, and you may want to take a different route than I did. But I assure you that if you keep these things in mind, there’s a very high chance you’ll pass the CKAD exam. If you enjoyed reading this article, please share it. 💛

Ace the CKAD with me

This article is part of the CKAD Tips weekly series, where I write articles that will enable anyone studying for the CKAD to excel during the examinations. Stay up to date on the latest additions to this series by following us on Medium or Twitter and kickstart your Kubernetes learning on our Kubernetes Developer Learning Center.

The CKAD series:

Edidiong Asikpo

Written by Edidiong Asikpo

Writer for

Ambassador Labs

Senior Developer Advocate at Ambassador Labs

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