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Read each scenario carefully and choose your answer before revealing the explanation. Then check why your choice was right or wrong. Repeat until the reasoning feels automatic.

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KCNA · topic practice

Kubernetes Fundamentals practice questions

Practise Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate KCNA Kubernetes Fundamentals practice questions — original exam-style scenarios with answer choices, explanations, and analysis of common mistakes.

Courseiva uses original exam-style practice questions designed for learning and revision. The goal is to understand the concepts, recognise exam patterns, and improve through explanations — not memorise copied exam dumps.

Reviewed byJohnson Ajibi· MSc IT Security

20 questionsDomain: Kubernetes Fundamentals

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What the exam tests

What to know about Kubernetes Fundamentals

Kubernetes Fundamentals questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.

How the topic appears in realistic exam-style scenarios.

Which detail in the question changes the correct answer.

How to eliminate plausible but wrong options.

How to connect the question back to the wider exam objective.

Watch out for

Common Kubernetes Fundamentals exam traps

▸Answering from memory before reading the full scenario.
▸Missing a constraint such as cost, availability, security, scope or command context.
▸Choosing a broad answer when the question asks for the most specific fix.
▸Ignoring why the wrong options are tempting.

Practice set

Kubernetes Fundamentals questions

20 questions · select your answer, then reveal the explanation

Question 1mediummultiple choice

Read the full Kubernetes Fundamentals explanation →

A developer deploys a pod that continuously restarts. 'kubectl describe pod' shows the container exits with code 137. What is the most likely cause?

Trap 1: The liveness probe is failing and restarting the container.

Liveness probe failure restarts the container but exit code is not typically 137.

Trap 2: The init container is failing and blocking the main container.

Init container failure would prevent the main container from starting at all.

Trap 3: The pod is hitting a resource quota limit at the namespace level.

Resource quota prevents creation, not runtime OOM.

Study all Kubernetes Fundamentals common traps →

A
The container is exceeding its memory limit and being OOM-killed.
Exit code 137 indicates SIGKILL, often from OOM.
B
The liveness probe is failing and restarting the container.
Why wrong: Liveness probe failure restarts the container but exit code is not typically 137.
C
The init container is failing and blocking the main container.
Why wrong: Init container failure would prevent the main container from starting at all.
D
The pod is hitting a resource quota limit at the namespace level.
Why wrong: Resource quota prevents creation, not runtime OOM.

Kubernetes Fundamentals practice questions

What to know about Kubernetes Fundamentals

Common Kubernetes Fundamentals exam traps

Kubernetes Fundamentals questions

A developer deploys a pod that continuously restarts. 'kubectl describe pod' shows the container exits with code 137. What is the most likely cause?

An application requires a unique identifier per replica, stored in an environment variable. Which Kubernetes resource should be used to inject this identifier into each pod without manual updates?

A pod is stuck in 'Pending' state. 'kubectl describe pod' shows '0/4 nodes are available: 4 node(s) had taint {node.kubernetes.io/unreachable: }, that the pod didn't tolerate.' What is the most likely cause?

A team wants to minimize downtime during a Deployment rollout. Which strategy ensures that new pods are created before old pods are terminated?

A pod in a ReplicaSet is failing with 'CrashLoopBackOff'. 'kubectl logs pod' shows 'Error: listen tcp :8080: bind: address already in use'. What is the most likely cause?

Which TWO of the following are valid ways to expose a set of pods as a network service within a Kubernetes cluster?

Which THREE of the following are required for a Kubernetes pod to be considered healthy and ready to serve traffic?

A team notices that a pod remains in 'CrashLoopBackOff' state after deployment. The application logs show 'Error: unable to bind to port 8080'. What is the most likely cause?

A DevOps engineer wants to ensure that a critical application pod is rescheduled on a different node if its current node fails. The pod should be scheduled with a preference for nodes in a specific availability zone but can run elsewhere if needed. Which scheduling mechanism should be used?

A developer creates a pod that needs to securely access a database password stored in the cluster. Which Kubernetes resource should be used to inject the password as an environment variable?

An administrator runs 'kubectl get pods' and sees that a pod is in 'Pending' state. 'kubectl describe pod' shows the event: '0/4 nodes are available: 1 node had taints that the pod didn't tolerate, 3 nodes had insufficient memory'. What is the most likely issue?

A cluster has a node with the taint 'node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane:NoSchedule'. A pod must be scheduled on this node for a special workload. Which action is required?

Which TWO statements about Kubernetes namespaces are true?

Which THREE of the following are valid ways to expose a set of pods as a network service in Kubernetes?

Refer to the exhibit. A pod is created with the above manifest. The container runs nginx listening on port 80, but the liveness probe is configured to check port 8080. What will happen?

Exhibit

Refer to the exhibit. A pod 'my-pod' shows repeated 'BackOff' events after the container starts. Which is the most likely cause?

A development team deploys a microservice that crashes every few minutes. The deployment uses a single replica, and the pod restarts repeatedly. Which Kubernetes feature should be enabled to ensure the service remains available during failures?

A DevOps engineer needs to expose a set of pods running an HTTP API to external clients. The pods are stateless and should be load-balanced. Which Kubernetes resource should they use?

An administrator notices that a pod in a Deployment is stuck in CrashLoopBackOff. The pod logs show 'Error: failed to start container: exec: "app": executable file not found in $PATH'. What is the most likely cause?

A team uses a Deployment with 3 replicas and a RollingUpdate strategy. They update the container image. During the update, one of the new pods fails to start. What will happen by default?

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