PMP Practice Exam
This is a free 15-question sampler for the PMP certification exam, written by the StudyPDF team from PMI's published exam content outline. It works the way the real exam does, with short scenarios that ask what a project manager should do first, spread across the People, Process and Business Environment domains and across predictive, agile and hybrid delivery. Answer all 15 questions, then check your score and read the explanation for every one.
A newly formed project team is three weeks in and progress is slow. Two members have been working on the same deliverable without knowing it, and nobody is sure who signs off on anything. What should the project manager do first?
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All 15 questions at a glance
Prefer to read before you play? Every question in the sampler is listed below. Answers and explanations stay collapsed until you open them.
1. A newly formed project team is three weeks in and progress is slow. Two members have been working on the same deliverable without knowing it, and nobody is sure who signs off on anything. What should the project manager do first?
- A. Ask the sponsor to replace the two members who duplicated work
- B. Work with the team to agree roles, responsibilities and decision rights, and write them down where everyone can see them
- C. Add a buffer to the schedule to absorb the lost time
- D. Wait one more iteration to see whether the team sorts itself out
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Work with the team to agree roles, responsibilities and decision rights, and write them down where everyone can see them
Duplicated work and unclear sign off are symptoms of undefined roles, not of bad people, so replacing anyone fixes nothing. A new team is still forming, and the project manager's job at that point is to make ownership explicit and visible. Adjusting the schedule treats the symptom and leaves the cause in place.
2. Two senior engineers disagree openly about a technical approach, and the argument is now slowing the whole team. Which conflict approach generally produces the most durable result?
- A. Smoothing, by emphasizing what they agree on and moving past the difference
- B. Withdrawing, by postponing the discussion until tempers cool
- C. Forcing, by deciding for them so the team can move
- D. Collaborating, by working through both positions to a solution each can support
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Collaborating, by working through both positions to a solution each can support
Collaborating, sometimes called problem solving, is the only approach that deals with the substance of the disagreement, so it tends to hold. The others have their moments. Withdrawing is reasonable when emotions are too high to talk, and forcing is reasonable when safety or a hard deadline leaves no time. Smoothing buries the issue, and buried technical disagreements usually resurface later at a worse moment.
3. Complete the sentence.
In a schedule network, the critical path is the _____ path from start to finish, and the activities on it have _____ of zero.
Options for blank 1: shortest, longest, most heavily resourced, most expensive
Options for blank 2: cost variance, lead time, total float, reserve
Show answer and explanation
Answer: longest, total float
The critical path is the longest path through the network because it sets the shortest possible duration for the whole project. Activities on it have no total float, so a one day slip on any of them slips the finish date by a day unless you compress the schedule. A project can have more than one critical path, and float can go negative when a date is imposed that the network cannot meet.
4. Halfway through delivery, a department head who was never consulted tells the project manager that the solution will not work for her team. What should the project manager do first?
- A. Explain that requirements are baselined and the project cannot change now
- B. Ask the sponsor to overrule her so the schedule holds
- C. Meet with her to understand her needs and her influence, then update the stakeholder register and the engagement approach
- D. Add everything she asks for to the next release so she stops objecting
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Meet with her to understand her needs and her influence, then update the stakeholder register and the engagement approach
A stakeholder surfacing this late means the identification and analysis work was incomplete, and the fix is to do it properly rather than to argue about the baseline. Understanding her needs first is what tells you whether this is a real requirement gap, a communication gap or a preference. Whatever comes out of that conversation still goes through change control before it touches the scope.
5. On a predictive project, which of the following make up the scope baseline?
Select all that apply.
- A. The project schedule
- B. The project scope statement
- C. The work breakdown structure
- D. The WBS dictionary
- E. The risk register
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. The project scope statement, C. The work breakdown structure, D. The WBS dictionary
The scope baseline is the approved scope statement, the work breakdown structure and the WBS dictionary taken together, and it changes only through formal change control. The schedule and the cost figures are their own baselines. The risk register is a project document that gets updated constantly, so it is never part of a baseline.
6. During a status meeting on a predictive project, the customer asks for one extra feature. The team says it is about two days of work. What should the project manager do?
- A. Record it as a change request so its impact on scope, schedule, cost, quality and risk is assessed and the right people decide
- B. Approve it on the spot, since two days fits inside the contingency reserve
- C. Refuse it, because the scope baseline is approved and cannot be changed
- D. Ask the team to absorb it quietly and keep the reporting unchanged
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Record it as a change request so its impact on scope, schedule, cost, quality and risk is assessed and the right people decide
Size is not what decides this. Any change to an approved baseline goes through the documented change control process so the impact is assessed and the decision is made by whoever holds that authority, often a change control board. Refusing outright is just as wrong as approving outright, because the process exists to answer the question, not to block it. Absorbing work silently destroys the integrity of the baseline and of your reporting.
7. A project depends on a single supplier with a history of late delivery. The team qualifies a second supplier and moves part of the volume to it. Which risk response strategy is this?
- A. Accept
- B. Mitigate
- C. Avoid
- D. Escalate
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Mitigate
Mitigating means acting to reduce the probability or the impact of a threat without removing it, and dual sourcing does exactly that, since a late shipment now hurts less. Avoiding would mean changing the plan so the threat cannot occur at all, for example by designing the supplier's component out. Accepting means doing nothing beyond acknowledging the threat, and escalating means handing it to someone outside the project because it sits above your authority.
8. Complete the sentence.
A project has a budget at completion of $200,000. At the checkpoint it is 40 percent complete, $100,000 has been spent, and the planned value is $90,000. The earned value is _____, and the schedule performance index is about _____.
Options for blank 1: $80,000, $90,000, $100,000, $120,000
Options for blank 2: 0.80, 0.89, 1.11, 1.25
Show answer and explanation
Answer: $80,000, 0.89
Earned value is the share of the work actually finished valued at the budget, so 40 percent of $200,000 is $80,000. Schedule performance index is earned value divided by planned value, which is 80,000 over 90,000, or about 0.89, meaning the project is running behind plan. Cost performance index is earned value divided by actual cost, 80,000 over 100,000, or 0.80, so this project is over budget as well as late.
9. Which statement best describes the difference between quality assurance and quality control?
- A. Assurance is done by the customer and control is done by the team
- B. They are two names for the same set of inspection activities
- C. Assurance is inspecting finished deliverables and control is improving the process
- D. Assurance is about the processes used to produce the work, and control is about checking the results against the requirements
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Assurance is about the processes used to produce the work, and control is about checking the results against the requirements
Assurance looks at the way work is being done and asks whether the process will reliably produce what was asked for, so audits and process improvement live there. Control looks at the output and asks whether this specific deliverable meets its acceptance criteria, so inspection and measurement live there. Option three has the two swapped, which is the mistake this question is checking for.
10. Which contract type places the most cost risk on the seller rather than the buyer?
- A. Firm fixed price
- B. Cost plus fixed fee
- C. Cost plus incentive fee
- D. Time and materials
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Firm fixed price
Under a firm fixed price contract the seller commits to a price, so if the work costs more than expected the seller absorbs it. Cost reimbursable contracts move that risk back to the buyer, because the buyer pays the actual costs plus a fee. Time and materials sits in between and is normally used for small or urgent work where the scope is not yet clear enough to price. Fixed price only works when the scope is defined well enough to price it honestly.
11. Which statements about an agile team's product backlog and velocity are accurate?
Select all that apply.
- A. The backlog is ordered, so the work judged most valuable sits near the top
- B. Velocity is an average of completed work per iteration and is used to forecast, not to rate people
- C. Items near the top are refined into smaller, clearer pieces than items further down
- D. The backlog is fixed once the project starts, so new items wait for the next project
- E. A team should be given a velocity target and rewarded for beating it
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. The backlog is ordered, so the work judged most valuable sits near the top, B. Velocity is an average of completed work per iteration and is used to forecast, not to rate people, C. Items near the top are refined into smaller, clearer pieces than items further down
A backlog is a living, ordered list, and reordering it as the business learns is the point rather than a failure of planning. Progressive refinement means the near term items are small and well understood while distant items stay coarse, so you do not spend effort detailing work that may never be built. Velocity is a forecasting tool for one team's own planning, and turning it into a target invites inflated estimates, which destroys the forecast.
12. In a retrospective, the team raises the same impediment for the third iteration in a row. What should a project manager acting as a servant leader do?
- A. Note it again and move on, since retrospectives belong to the team
- B. Ask the team to work extra hours to work around it
- C. Take ownership of removing or escalating the impediment, and make the action visible with an owner and a date
- D. Log it in the risk register and review it at the end of the project
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Take ownership of removing or escalating the impediment, and make the action visible with an owner and a date
Servant leadership means clearing the path so the team can do the work, and an impediment surviving three retrospectives is a signal that nobody owns it. Logging it without acting teaches the team that retrospectives change nothing, which is how teams stop raising problems. Asking for overtime pays for the impediment every iteration instead of removing it once.
13. A program has regulated hardware work and a software product in the same delivery. Which of these are reasonable ways to run it as a hybrid?
Select all that apply.
- A. Keep the regulated and hardware work on a plan driven schedule while the software is built in iterations
- B. Use rolling wave planning, so near term work is detailed and later work stays at a high level
- C. Show working software to stakeholders every few weeks while the overall milestone plan stays baselined
- D. Hold daily standups but treat the plan as unchangeable
- E. Skip documentation, since hybrid means the agile rules apply everywhere
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Keep the regulated and hardware work on a plan driven schedule while the software is built in iterations, B. Use rolling wave planning, so near term work is detailed and later work stays at a high level, C. Show working software to stakeholders every few weeks while the overall milestone plan stays baselined
Hybrid means choosing the approach that fits each part of the work rather than forcing one method onto everything, and regulated or physical work usually needs the predictability of a plan. Rolling wave planning and regular demonstrations let you keep commitments to the business while still learning as you go. The last two options take the ceremonies of agile without the substance, and on regulated work the missing documentation is what fails the audit.
14. Complete the sentence.
The document that says how and when the expected benefits of a project will be measured is the _____, and the person normally accountable for those benefits being realized is the _____.
Options for blank 1: business case, benefits management plan, project charter, communications management plan
Options for blank 2: contract administrator, project manager, project sponsor, quality auditor
Show answer and explanation
Answer: benefits management plan, project sponsor
The business case argues why the project is worth doing, and the benefits management plan says who measures the resulting benefits, when, and against what baseline. Accountability for realizing them normally sits with the sponsor or a named benefits owner, because most benefits appear after the project has closed. The project manager delivers the outputs and hands over what is needed to measure them, so shipping the full scope on time is not by itself proof of value. Titles vary by organization, so check who your own governance names.
15. Midway through delivery, a new data protection rule takes effect in the country where the product will launch. What should the project manager do first?
- A. Continue as planned, since the requirement was not in the approved scope
- B. Assess the impact on the project and the deliverable with the people who own compliance, then take it through change control
- C. Ask the developers to add whatever they believe the rule requires
- D. Pause the project until someone tells the team what to do
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Assess the impact on the project and the deliverable with the people who own compliance, then take it through change control
Compliance sits in the Business Environment domain, and the expected behavior is to monitor the external environment, assess the effect on the project and act through the proper channel. The project manager is not the legal expert, so the first move is to get the compliance or legal owner involved and turn their answer into an assessed change. Guessing at a legal requirement is how you build the wrong control and still fail an audit, and doing nothing accepts a risk you have no authority to accept.
What the PMP exam actually asks
The PMP is PMI's project management certification, and the exam is built from a public document called the exam content outline. That outline sorts everything into three domains. People covers leading and building a team. Process covers the technical work of delivering a project, from scope and schedule through risk, quality and procurement. Business Environment covers how the project connects to strategy, compliance and the value it is supposed to produce. PMI revises the outline periodically and has changed both the domain weightings and the emphasis, so download the current version from pmi.org instead of trusting a summary.
The exam is deliberately approach neutral. A question can put you on a predictive, plan driven project, on an agile team, or on a hybrid of the two, and the outline states roughly how the questions divide between them. You cannot pass this exam by memorizing one methodology. You have to notice which environment the scenario has put you in and answer from inside that environment.
The numbers change. Question count, time limit, the hours of project experience you need to apply, the education requirement and the way PMI reports a pass are all set by PMI and have been revised more than once. Take them from the current PMP handbook on pmi.org, not from a study blog.
How to use this sampler
Nearly every question on this exam is a short scenario, and every answer choice is something a project manager could plausibly do. That is the whole difficulty. You are not asked what is true, you are asked what you should do first, and the options usually include one that escalates too early, one that skips a step, one that ignores the people involved, and one that is right.
A method that works: read the last line of the scenario first, because that is where the actual question lives. Then place yourself, meaning which domain, which delivery approach and which stage of the work. Then eliminate. Answers that do nothing, that go around the team, that escalate before you have gathered any facts, or that wave a change through without assessing its impact are almost always wrong. Answers that gather information, talk to the person affected, or follow the process the team already agreed on are usually right.
Take these 15 in one sitting without notes, then read every explanation, including for questions you got right. Map each miss back to a task in the exam content outline rather than to a single fact. Nothing on this page is legal or financial advice. Where a scenario touches regulation, the thing being tested is that you bring in the people who own compliance.
How StudyPDF builds full practice tests from your prep book
Fifteen questions can show you which domain you are weakest in. They cannot get you ready on their own, and most people sitting this exam are studying around a full time job, often paying for the prep course out of their own pocket.
StudyPDF works from the material you already have. Upload your PMP prep book, the slide deck from your training provider, your own process notes or your employer's project management handbook, and Bo, the study agent, builds full length practice tests from those exact pages. Every question is grounded in your material, and every explanation cites where the answer came from, so when something looks off you can go straight to the page and check it. You can regenerate a fresh test whenever you want, narrow it to one area such as earned value or stakeholder engagement, and track the concepts you keep missing.
You do not need a document to start. If your prep book is at home and you have twenty minutes on a break, name a topic instead, for example risk response strategies or agile ceremonies, and Bo writes a practice test from that. Starting is free.
Written by the StudyPDF team. Last updated 2026-08-19.