If you can explain each of these without notes, you have the foundations.
Architecture
✓The reconcile loop and why it self-heals
✓Why only the API server touches etcd
✓Authn, authz, admission in order
✓Quorum, odd etcd sizes, NOSPACE
✓The seven-step journey of apply
Placement and workloads
✓Filter, score, bind
✓Requests vs limits, QoS, eviction order
✓Taints, affinity, spread, priority, PDB
✓Deployment, StatefulSet, DaemonSet, Job
✓Rolling update settings, probes
Networking, storage, platforms
✓Flat Pod network, CNI, Services, DNS
✓Default-deny NetworkPolicy
✓Ingress versus Gateway API
✓PV, PVC, StorageClass, access modes, WFFC
✓Who owns what on GKE, EKS, Rancher
Next: take the 15-question quiz. Then Deck 2 goes deep on GKE, Deck 3 on EKS, Deck 4 on on-prem, Rancher and troubleshooting.