My CKA Journey- I failed in my first attempt and then learned my lessons :)
Hey friends, I am really really glad to share with you all that I have successfully completed CKA certification and would like to share my story so that it can help people like me who are preparing for CKA and want to know some tips and tricks which really worked for me.
To be very honest, this exam is really tough. It's not the questions that are tough rather I would say it's time which is the main important aspect of this exam. I have done some other certifications where it's always multiple-choice questions and by seeing the options you get some help to find out the right answer but this exam is different, it's all hands-on lab. You will be given 17–20 questions and have to complete all the questions in 2 hours. This is the beauty of this exam :D
Well as I told I failed in my first attempt and just scored 54% marks. I was really scared that I only have 1 more attempt left and what if I fail again. Then I started recalling things that what I did wrong in my exam bcz I was really well prepared and was working with Kubernetes for almost 2 years now. So I was really shocked that I just scored 54% and failed. So here are things that I did wrong in my first attempt and learned my lesson and cleared my exam in the second attempt with 78% (which is not really a great percentile but still I am happy that I cleared this exam :D).
- Don't panic: I know it's easy to say but difficult to be calm in the exam when you know it's not an easy exam and you want your certification so badly. But believe me, if you will not be calm you will make silly mistakes. You need to remember that this exam is a practical exam. You have to answers each and every question so precisely that whatever tool or technique Linux Academy is using to validate your answers, they should be able to validate it properly, so make sure you are following each and everything asked in question (like correct context, right namespace, right names etc)
- The first thing to do is enable auto-commit: By now you must be knowing that this exam is for 2 hours and you will be asked 17–20 questions so you have to be very fast. I read some people's posts and they said that it was easy for them and 2 hours is enough time but believe me it's really not enough if you are not being smart here. So before doing anything, first enable auto-commit in your environment and you should be comfortable with them so that you are not just setting them in your env but also using them. So advice from me is when you are preparing for an exam you should always practice by enabling the auto-commit and use your alias instead of writing full commands.
Here are my aliases
source <(kubectl completion bash)
echo "source <(kubectl completion bash)"
alias k=kubectl
complete -F __start_kubectl k
#Aliases which I praticed from begining alias kg='kubectl get'
alias kc='kubectl create'
alias kr='kubectl run'
alias ka='kubectl apply -f'
alias kd='kubectl describe'
export d='--dry-run=client -o yaml'
export f='--grace-period=0 --force' (this will save time if you have to delete some pod which takes longer time to delete)# Now my command were so easy
kg po <podname>
kd deploy <deploy name>
kr nginx --image=nginx $d > nginx.yaml
ka nginx.yaml
k delete po nginx $f
You can have your own other aliases but I found them enough. Just keep using them every time you do the practice.
3. Please create your bookmarks: I know when someone says this then it may feel foolish. You may think that why do I need to bookmark the sites, I can search for things when needed. But believe me, this is a savior when you have very limited time. So bookmark all the Kubernetes sites so that you can search things quickly when needed.
4. Killer.sh: I am a kind of person who believes that I will never opt for dumps or any material for any exam and will prepare on my own but believe me this exam is different and you need to understand the exam environment. Until you are not comfortable with the environment where you have to give an exam you won't be able to pass even though you have good knowledge of Kubernetes. So my suggestion is don't hesitate to spend another 30–40 dollars to get this killer.sh environment where you can have a similar environment as the actual exam. It will give you much more confidence. This is more like practicing the actual exam environment and the question dumps.
5. Don't be scared to take your first attempt: This exam gives luxury for one retake if you fail in your first attempt which saved me. But I would say if this is the first time for this kind of exam and environment then it might be difficult to understand the exam pattern and environment so don't hesitate to take the first attempt to see where you are with your preparation. As per me I was well prepared for the exam as I finished all the topics from the CKA curriculum and also was working with Kubernetes on daily basis but in the exam, I got panicked and did not set the auto-commit and then was not having enough time to finish all questions and so made many mistakes like forgot to set the right context for some of the questions :(
6. Save all yamls with a question no: This one thing I would really suggest and its really helped me to revisit my ansewrs later point of time. So try to create yamls for most of your questions with dry-run commands and save them with the name as your question no.(like 1.yaml, 2.yaml, 3dep.yaml, 3po.yaml). This really helped me to revisit my answers.
7. First focus on the higher weighted questions: In the exam, there will be some questions with lower weightage and some with higher weightage. Don't spend too much time on lower weightage questions and note them in notepad for a later time and first finish the higher weightage once. In my first attempt, I did not focus on weightage and started solving questions from question no.1, and at the end, I didn't get time to check the last few questions which were of the highest weightage. So don't spend too much time on any question, If you feel if it's taking time leaves it immediately and make a note in your notepad with weightage, and move to the next question.
And last but not least, you don't really have to answers each and every question, first focus on getting the passing score and then run behind 100% score. I know everyone desires to get a good score but first thing is to get the passing score and don't forgot this :).
Well If you are reading my post and soon planning to give your exam then All the very best for your exam :) and please don't forget to give me a clap if you liked my post :) .. Happy Learning :)