CKA Workloads and Scheduling Practice Question
A StatefulSet named 'web' with spec.replicas=3 uses the default pod management policy (OrderedReady). The StatefulSet has persistent volume claims. You run 'kubectl scale statefulset web --replicas=5'. Which statement is TRUE about the new pods?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse the default OrderedReady policy with the Parallel pod management policy, or mistakenly think that scaling a StatefulSet recreates existing pods or imposes an arbitrary replica limit.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Pods web-3 and web-4 are created sequentially, each with its own PVC
A StatefulSet with the default OrderedReady pod management policy creates pods sequentially, strictly in order from the lowest ordinal index to the highest. When scaling from 3 to 5 replicas, pods web-3 and web-4 are created one after another, each with its own dedicated PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) as defined in the StatefulSet's volumeClaimTemplates.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Pods web-3 and web-4 are created in parallel, both sharing the same PVC
Why it's wrong here
The StatefulSet controller defaults to OrderedReady pod management, which creates pods sequentially by ordinal, not in parallel; parallel creation would require .spec.podManagementPolicy: Parallel. Additionally, each pod in a StatefulSet has its own PVC provisioned from the volumeClaimTemplates section, so the two new pods would not share a single PVC. Sharing a PVC across pods would violate the one-to-one binding between a StatefulSet pod and its volume, and is not how StatefulSet scaling works.
- ✗
The existing pods are recreated with new PVCs
Why it's wrong here
Scaling a StatefulSet from 3 to 5 replicas only adds new pods for the new ordinals (web-3 and web-4); it does not recreate the existing web-0, web-1, and web-2 pods. Existing pods keep their stable identity, networking, and PVCs because StatefulSet guarantees that pod names and volume bindings are sticky across scale-up and scale-down. Pod recreation would only happen during an update strategy like RollingUpdate, not during a simple replica count change.
- ✓
Pods web-3 and web-4 are created sequentially, each with its own PVC
Why this is correct
With the default OrderedReady policy, the StatefulSet controller creates pods one at a time in ordinal order: after web-2 is Running and Ready, it creates web-3, waits for it to be Ready, then creates web-4. Each new pod gets its own dedicated PVC from the volumeClaimTemplate, resulting in volumes such as data-web-3 and data-web-4. This ensures each pod has a unique, persistent identity and storage that survives rescheduling.
- ✗
Only web-3 is created because the StatefulSet cannot exceed 4 replicas
Why it's wrong here
There is no upper bound of 4 on StatefulSet replicas; the ordinal index can increase indefinitely as long as cluster resources are available. Scaling from 3 to 5 replicas is a valid operation and the controller will create both web-3 and web-4. The only reason web-4 might not appear is if it fails the readiness check or if there are insufficient resources, not because of a hidden replica limit.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Key term
kubectl Command Reference
kubectl is the command-line tool used to interact with and manage Kubernetes clusters by sending commands to the Kubernetes API.
Key term
Persistent Volume Claims
A Persistent Volume Claim (PVC) is a request for storage resources in Kubernetes, allowing a pod to consume abstracted storage without knowing the underlying storage details.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CKA practice question is part of Courseiva's free CNCF certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CKA exam.