CKAD Application Design and Build Practice Question
You have a Job that runs a batch process. The Job YAML is as follows:
apiVersion: batch/v1 kind: Job metadata: name: batch-job spec: parallelism: 4 completions: 12 backoffLimit: 2 template: spec: containers: - name: worker image: myapp:latest restartPolicy: Never
If one pod fails after 3 successful completions, and the Job has already completed 7 successes, how many pods will be running at that point? Assume no other failures.
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates mistakenly think a pod failure reduces the number of running pods or that the Job stops or scales down, but the parallelism remains constant and the controller continues to run pods up to that 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
✓
4
The Job is configured with parallelism: 4, meaning up to 4 pods run concurrently. At the moment a pod fails after 3 successful completions and the Job has already achieved 7 successes, the Job controller will still be running pods to reach the target of 12 completions. Since the failure does not reduce the number of running pods below the parallelism limit, and no other failures have occurred, the Job will continue to run 4 pods simultaneously.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
4
Why this is correct
The correct answer is 4 because the Job's `parallelism` field is set to 4, which defines the desired number of pods the Job controller keeps running concurrently. Even if a pod fails, the controller immediately creates a replacement pod to restore the count to 4, provided the `backoffLimit` has not been exceeded. Thus, at any given time (except for transient moments during pod termination), up to 4 pods are actively running.
- ✗
3
Why it's wrong here
The value 3 is incorrect because it suggests the controller reduces the number of running pods after a failure. In contrast, the Job controller's responsibility is to maintain the specified `parallelism` level (4) by launching new pods to replace failed ones. While there may be a brief hiccup where fewer than 4 pods are running (e.g., during the restart cycle), the controller quickly brings the count back to 4, and it never intentionally settles at 3.
- ✗
7
Why it's wrong here
The value 7 is incorrect because 7 corresponds to the Job's `completions` field, which specifies the total number of successful pod completions required for the Job to be considered finished. This is a cumulative target, not a measure of instantaneous running pods. The number of concurrently running pods is governed solely by `parallelism` (4), regardless of how many total successes are needed.
- ✗
5
Why it's wrong here
The value 5 is incorrect because it exceeds the configured `parallelism` of 4. The Job controller enforces `parallelism` as a hard cap on the number of pods that can be actively running at the same time. Unless there are special circumstances (e.g., terminating pods aren't yet counted, but that's not a steady state), the controller will never intentionally start more than 4 pods. Therefore, 5 is an impossible steady-state pod count for this Job.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CKAD 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 CKAD exam.