I just passed the OpenTelemetry Certified Associate (OTCA) on 27 August 2026 — my ninth multiple-choice CNCF cert on the way to Golden Kubestronaut.
No real exam questions here: you have to sign a confidentiality agreement with the Linux Foundation, and I'm keeping to it.
What the OTCA actually weights
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| The OpenTelemetry API and SDK | 46% |
| The OpenTelemetry Collector | 26% |
| Fundamentals of Observability | 18% |
| Maintaining and Debugging Observability Pipelines | 10% |
Nearly half the exam is one domain, and it isn't the half people prepare for. "API and SDK" doesn't mean writing instrumentation code — it means knowing what the SDK's parts do once configured: instrument selection, span processors and their queue behaviour, samplers and how a decision propagates downstream. The Collector's 26% is almost entirely YAML — read a pipeline, say what's wrong with it. Fundamentals at 18% is narrower than "what is observability": resource identity, semantic conventions, schema_url. The last 10% is small and unforgiving — you've either watched a Collector drop data or you haven't.
How I studied
- I used KodeKloud's Prep Course — OpenTelemetry Certified Associate (OTCA) as the spine.
- Writing the questions, and doing the mock exams again and again.
Writing the questions is the study
The cheap version needs no tool and is the part worth stealing: for every topic you study, write three exam questions about it, including the wrong answers. If you can't produce a convincing wrong answer, you've found your gap.
I ran that habit at an unreasonable scale. Alongside the last several certs I've been building my own mock exam simulator — https://www.goldenkubestronaut.app
The OTCA bank meant three 60-question mocks weighted to the official split, every question with a defensible answer, three plausible distractors, and an explanation tied back to official documentation — all written from the published curriculum, and finished before I sat the exam. You cannot write a good distractor for a topic you only half understand. The distractor is the test, not the answer.
One of my own 180:
An incoming HTTP request carries
traceparentwith the sampled flag clear. The SDK is configured withOTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER=parentbased_traceidratioandOTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG=0.5. What sampling decision is made for the resulting server span?
- It is sampled with 50% probability based on its trace ID, ignoring the parent flag
- It is always sampled because
parentbased_traceidratiodefaults to keeping all traces with a parent- It is dropped;
parentbased_*honors the parent's sampled flag when one exists- It is sampled only if the parent's
tracestatecontains anotelvendor entry
Answer
3. parentbased_traceidratio follows the upstream traceparent sampled flag whenever there is one; the 0.5 ratio is the fallback used only at the root. A sampled-clear parent therefore drops the child, which is what keeps a trace consistent end to end. (1) inverts that precedence, (2) invents a default that doesn't exist, and (4) confuses tracestate with the sampled flag.
Then I sat the mocks cold — same format, same 75% threshold, timed. The gaps that surfaced were real gaps, and I had a week to close them. The exam itself felt familiar: not because I'd seen the questions, but because I'd already had to think in the same shapes.
Try the application yourself
If you're studying for KCNA or CGOA, both have a free mock exam once you log in — the easiest way to judge whether the questions are any good before spending anything.
Here's what an OTCA question looks like in practice mode.
Practical notes
- 90 minutes, 60 questions, 75% to pass, remote-proctored — that's what I sat on 27 August 2026. The Linux Foundation OTCA page is the authority if it moves.
- Test your webcam and clear your desk well before your slot. Flag and move rather than staring — multiple choice rewards a second pass.
What's left
Three to go for Golden Kubestronaut: CNPA, then LFCS and CNPE hands-on.
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