20 free PMP practice questions

Correct answer: C · Understand both views, then have the team agree on a review rule in its working agreement

The conflict has a clear source: the team never agreed how code review works, so each developer is defending a personal standard. Hearing both positions and then letting the team set a shared rule in its working agreement removes the cause and gives everyone a standard to point to next time. Deciding the rule yourself may stop the argument, but it takes over a decision the team owns and builds no buy-in. Sending it to functional managers turns a process disagreement into a performance matter and skips the team. Keeping it out of the stand-up protects the meeting but leaves the cause in place and pushes it back onto the two people who are already stuck.

Look for this next time: When team conflict comes from a missing agreement, fix the agreement with the team instead of imposing a rule or sidestepping the issue.

Correct answer: A · Hybrid: predictive plans for the meters and report date, short feedback iterations for the portal

The three parts have different profiles. The meter rollout has stable, well-understood requirements and physical work that is costly to redo, and the report date is fixed, so predictive planning with a baseline suits them. The portal has unclear needs and the utility wants early feedback, which favors short iterations. A hybrid plan lets each part use the approach that fits while one integrated plan tracks dependencies, such as the portal displaying meter data. Upfront sign-off on the portal locks in guesses about what residents need. Running the meter rollout as backlog items adds little and weakens control of the fixed date. Unrelated projects lose the integration those dependencies require.

Look for this next time: Recommend an approach for each part of the work: stable, fixed-date work suits predictive planning, and uncertain user-facing work suits short iterations.

Correct answer: B · Take the forecast, its causes, and recovery options to the sponsor for a decision now

The forecast overrun is $140,000, which is 7% of the $2,000,000 budget, so it falls in the sponsor's band. Escalation thresholds exist so that decisions are made at the right level as soon as a forecast crosses a line, which means the project manager brings the analysis and options to the sponsor now. Acting alone goes beyond the project manager's 5% authority, even though the variance is under 10%. Going straight to the steering committee skips the sponsor and uses a forum the plan reserves for variances above 10%. Waiting for more actuals delays a decision the plan already assigns; a forecast-based threshold is meant to act before the money is spent.

Look for this next time: Compare the forecast variance with the governance thresholds and escalate to the level the plan names, no higher and no lower.

Correct answer: D · Call the planned rollback yourself, give each person a task, and debrief with the team afterward

Time is short, the approved plan already says what to do when the test fails, and the team has stalled. That calls for a directive style for the moment: confirm the rollback, give clear assignments, and keep people safe and coordinated. The project manager returns to a participative style in the debrief, where the team's ideas about the failure are needed. A vote takes time the window does not have and could pick an untested fix over the approved rollback. Handing the call to one electrician gives up the coordinating role while people disagree. Pausing everything for the sponsor wastes minutes when the plan already authorizes the rollback.

Look for this next time: Fit the leadership style to the moment: be directive when time is short and an agreed plan exists, then return to a participative style.

Correct answer: A · Over budget and behind schedule: CPI is about 0.87, SPI is 0.80, and EAC is about $575,000

Earned value compares the work done with both the money spent and the work planned. Cost variance is EV minus AC: $200,000 − $230,000 = −$30,000, and CPI is 200,000 ÷ 230,000 ≈ 0.87, so each dollar spent has produced about 87 cents of planned work. Schedule variance is EV minus PV: −$50,000, and SPI is 200,000 ÷ 250,000 = 0.80. If the cost trend continues, EAC = BAC ÷ CPI = $575,000. The committee member compared actual cost with planned value, which ignores how much work was actually done. “On schedule” ignores the SPI. An SPI of 1.25 comes from dividing PV by EV, which turns the index upside down.

Look for this next time: Judge cost by comparing earned value with actual cost, and schedule by comparing earned value with planned value; never compare actual cost with planned value.

Correct answer: C · Add the supervisors to the register and analyze their interest, influence, and engagement level

A stakeholder group that was missed, has strong interest, and is already uneasy needs to be analyzed before anyone decides how to engage it. Adding the supervisors to the register and assessing their interest, influence, concerns, and current versus desired engagement lets the project manager plan the right response, such as inviting them to iteration reviews and addressing the staffing rumor with the sponsor. A sponsor directive may get compliance but not trust, and it ignores the concern. Waiting for acceptance testing throws away the chance to shape the portal through iteration feedback. Release notes are one-way information and do not address what the supervisors care about.

Look for this next time: When you discover a missed stakeholder group, analyze it first, then plan engagement around its interest, influence, and concerns.

Correct answer: D · Have the product owner reorder the backlog with this input, moving delivery-slot changes higher

Value-based delivery means using evidence and stakeholder feedback to decide what to build next. The usage data says the recipe feature returns little value, and the store managers describe a real customer pain point, so the product owner, who is accountable for ordering the product backlog, should reorder it with that input. Finishing items because they were estimated ignores the feedback loop that iterations exist to create. Slipping work into the sprint behind the product owner's back bypasses the person who owns the ordering and can put the sprint goal at risk. Freezing the order until the release ships wastes several sprints on low-value work when the evidence is already in hand.

Look for this next time: In adaptive work, let usage data and stakeholder feedback reorder the backlog through the product owner instead of finishing work just because it was planned.

Correct answer: B · Engage the privacy office now and make the assessment part of the feature's acceptance criteria

A compliance requirement is a constraint, not an optional backlog item to be traded against value. Contacting the privacy office while the feature is still being refined lets the team learn what the assessment needs and build any required controls into the work, and putting the assessment in the acceptance criteria means the feature cannot count as done without it. Releasing first and assessing later creates exactly the gap the policy exists to prevent. Asking whether compliance earns its place treats a mandatory requirement as negotiable. Self-review by the developers replaces an assessment the organization has assigned to its privacy office.

Look for this next time: Treat compliance requirements as mandatory: engage the responsible function early and build the requirement into what done means.

Correct answer: A · Coach the team to plan and pull its own work, and stay available to remove impediments

Agile teams manage how they do their own work, and these engineers are experienced enough to choose and coordinate their tasks. The project manager's job is to build that habit: coaching the team to plan together, pull work from the sprint backlog, and use the daily meeting to coordinate, while removing impediments the team cannot clear itself. Continuing to assign work keeps the project manager as the bottleneck that is already stopping progress. Making a senior engineer the assigner only moves the bottleneck. The product owner decides what is most valuable, not who does which task, so asking the product owner to assign work mixes up the roles.

Look for this next time: Empowering an agile team means building its ability to organize its own work, not handing the task-assigning job to someone else.

Correct answer: C · Decompose the approved scope into a WBS with the team, then define activities from it

Missing deliverables and duplicate tasks are signs that the scope was never broken down. A deliverable-based work breakdown structure, built from the approved scope with the team, helps make sure all of the work is captured once, and schedule activities can then be defined from its work packages. Merging department lists repeats the problem, because no one checks the lists against the full scope. Baselining a schedule that is known to be incomplete builds change requests into the plan from the first day. A product backlog is a sound tool for adaptive work, but this relocation is predictive, and a backlog would not by itself reveal what has been left out.

Look for this next time: In predictive work, decompose the approved scope into a deliverable-based WBS before defining and baselining schedule activities.

Correct answer: D · Identify the critical interface knowledge now and pair a successor with the engineer on real work

This is critical knowledge with a deadline. Naming the knowledge that matters most and pairing a successor with the engineer on actual interface work, backed by documentation they build together, transfers both written and hands-on knowledge while the expert is still available to answer questions. A document written in the final week is likely to be rushed and leaves no time to test it. Logging the departure for closure treats a live threat to Phase 3 as history. Hiring a consultant after the engineer leaves pays to rediscover what could be transferred now, and it still puts the Phase 3 dates at risk.

Look for this next time: When critical knowledge sits with one person, identify it early and transfer it through shared work while that person is still available.

Correct answer: C · Shorten D by 2 days, for $2,000

Path A-B-E takes 12 days and path A-C-D-E takes 14, so A-C-D-E is the critical path and B has 2 days of total float. Only shortening critical activities moves the finish. Cutting D by 2 days costs $2,000 and brings A-C-D-E to 12 days, equal to A-B-E, so the project finishes in 12 days. Cutting C and D by a day each also reaches 12 days, but costs $2,500. Shortening B is cheapest, but B is not on the critical path, so it only adds float and the end date does not move. B plus C costs $2,500 and gains just 1 day, because D still holds A-C-D-E at 13. After the crash both paths are critical, so any slip on either one delays the finish.

Look for this next time: Compress only critical-path activities, start with the lowest cost per day, and check whether a parallel path becomes critical.

Correct answer: B · Put the turnstile change through change control and give the app idea to the product owner

In a hybrid project each part keeps its own change mechanism. The turnstile hardware is baselined and tied to a contract, so a model change needs a documented change request, an analysis of its effect on cost, schedule, and the contract, and a decision by the change authority. The app is adaptive, so a new feature idea goes to the product owner, who weighs it against the rest of the backlog. Sending both to the board adds needless overhead to the adaptive part. Putting the hardware change in the backlog bypasses the baseline and contract controls. Approving or declining on the spot skips the analysis, and a baselined item can still be changed through the process.

Look for this next time: In hybrid work, send changes to baselined components through formal change control and send new ideas for adaptive components to the product backlog.

Correct answer: A · Review the velocity forecast with marketing and the product owner, and agree on priorities for the date

The marketing team's expectation and the team's evidence do not match, and the project manager's job is to bring them together with facts. Reviewing the forecast built from actual velocity, clarifying what kickoff presented, and working with the marketing lead and the product owner on which features matter most for the date turns a later disappointment into a decision now. Inflating the velocity estimate hides the gap and sets up a bigger surprise. Saying agile teams never forecast is wrong; release forecasts based on velocity are normal, and refusing one damages trust. Adding people mid-stream rarely raises output right away, and it commits money and staff nobody has approved.

Look for this next time: When expectations and delivery evidence diverge, share the evidence early and facilitate agreement on priorities instead of promising more or refusing to forecast.

Correct answer: D · Firm fixed price, based on the approved design and the quantities it specifies

When the scope is well defined, a firm-fixed-price contract lets the buyer set the price up front and puts the risk of cost overruns on the seller, which is what this buyer wants. A cost-plus-fixed-fee contract reimburses the seller's costs, so the buyer carries the overrun risk; it suits work whose scope or effort cannot be defined well. Time and materials leaves the total open, and a ceiling added later gives no protection now. An economic price adjustment protects against unstable market conditions over a long contract; with four months of work and stable prices it adds complexity and moves price risk back toward the buyer.

Look for this next time: Match the contract type to scope definition: a well-defined scope supports a firm fixed price, which puts cost risk on the seller.

Correct answer: B · Agree with the committee on a summary that shows the burn-up forecast against the launch date

Reports should be tailored to the decision the audience has to make. The committee's question is whether the software will be ready for a fixed milestone, and the burn-up chart already holds that answer once it is translated: the forecast range against the milestone date, in the committee's format, with a short plain-language note. Agreeing the format with the committee also creates a feedback loop. Percent complete by task fits adaptive work poorly and can look healthy while delivered value lags. Sprint reviews exist for product feedback and would cost the committee far more time than a monthly report. Attaching raw backlog data adds detail but no clearer answer.

Look for this next time: Tailor reports to the decision the audience must make, translating team metrics into the governance view instead of replacing them or burying readers in data.

Correct answer: C · Add automated regression tests for the tax rules and make passing them part of the Definition of Done

Defects that return in calculations that once worked point to missing regression protection. Automated regression tests that must pass before work counts as done move appraisal into the sprint, where breakage is cheapest to catch, and cut the rework costs the team is paying now. A hardening sprint moves detection even later and lets defects pile up. More thorough user testing is appraisal at the most expensive point, after the work has left the team. Taking fewer stories frees time for fixes but leaves the cause in place, so the team keeps paying the same failure cost and delivers less.

Look for this next time: Catching defects early, for example with automated regression tests built into the Definition of Done, usually costs less than finding and fixing them later.

Correct answer: A · Carry out the contingency plan, log the issue, and update the risk register and stakeholders

The trigger has occurred, so the risk has become an issue. Its response was analyzed and approved in advance precisely so it could be used without delay. The project manager carries out the contingency plan, records the issue in the issue log, updates the risk register, and tells stakeholders what is happening. Reassessing probability makes no sense for an event that is already under way. The risk is already in the register, so adding a new one duplicates it and delays action. Waiting a week ignores the trigger the team chose and could leave incoming stock with nowhere to go.

Look for this next time: When a risk trigger occurs, treat the risk as an issue and carry out the planned response instead of analyzing it again.

Correct answer: D · Hold closure until the transition criteria are met, with a plan to deliver the runbooks and training

Closure depends on readiness for transition, not only on accepted deliverables. The agreed transition criteria name runbooks and training, and the receiving team confirms they are missing, so the project is not ready to close. The project manager should tell the sponsor, agree a short plan with operations to finish the handover, and then close. Closing on acceptance alone leaves the system without a support team that can run it. Releasing the project team removes the people who can write the runbooks and deliver the training. A sponsor instruction may force a handover on paper, but the support team still cannot operate the system.

Look for this next time: Validate readiness for transition against the agreed criteria before closing, even when every deliverable has been accepted.

Correct answer: B · Help the product owner and team size the migration, add it to the backlog, and order it for the deadline

A change in the external technology environment is an input to the backlog. The team should assess the impact (how much work the migration is and what it touches), add the work to the product backlog, and let the product owner order it so it finishes well before the retirement date, telling stakeholders how that shifts the feature forecast. Cancelling a sprint is reserved for a sprint goal that has become obsolete, and a change seven months away does not make the current goal obsolete. Waiting wastes lead time and invites a rushed migration. A change control board is a predictive control; an adaptive team takes on new work through the backlog.

Look for this next time: Assess external changes as soon as they are announced and fold the resulting work into the backlog in time to meet the deadline.