PMI · Free Practice Questions · Last reviewed May 2026
24real exam-style questions organised by domain, each with the correct answer highlighted and a plain-English explanation of why it's right — and why the others are wrong.
20% of exam · 6 sample questions below
A team is using Scrum and notices that the Product Owner frequently changes priorities during the Sprint, causing the team to rework tasks. What should the Scrum Master do first?
Coach the Product Owner on the Sprint Backlog rule and the impact of changes.
The Scrum Master coaches the Product Owner to respect the Sprint scope.
Shorten the Sprint duration to minimize rework.
Ask the team to be flexible and accept the changes.
Escalate to the project sponsor for resolution.
In Kanban, the team is experiencing frequent bottlenecks at the testing stage. Which practice should they adopt to improve flow?
Increase the batch size of work items.
Conduct daily stand-up meetings.
Add more testers to the testing phase.
Limit the WIP at each stage, especially testing.
Explicit WIP limits cap the number of items allowed at each workflow stage, so testing cannot be flooded with more work than it can process. This exposes the bottleneck, forces upstream stages to slow down, and pulls work through testing at a sustainable rate, improving overall flow.
A distributed Scrum team is having difficulty with communication across time zones. The Daily Scrum is scheduled at 9 AM in the US, which is midnight in India. What is the best approach to resolve this?
Record the Daily Scrum for the India team to watch later.
Replace the Daily Scrum with asynchronous updates.
Rotate the time of the Daily Scrum so that no one is always inconvenienced.
Fair rotation supports team collaboration.
Hold two separate Daily Scrums for each location.
During Sprint Planning, the Product Owner proposes a user story that is too large to fit in one Sprint. What should the team do?
Collaboratively break down the story into smaller, sprint-sized stories.
Splitting an oversized story into smaller sprint-sized items lets the team deliver value within one Sprint while preserving the Product Owner's intent. This collaborative refinement satisfies the Sprint timebox constraint that the original story violates.
Reject the story and ask for a smaller one.
Accept the story and work overtime to complete it.
Accept the story and commit to completing it in the Sprint.
A team is new to Agile and wants to implement a framework that emphasizes iterative development, time-boxed iterations, and a prioritized backlog. Which framework should they adopt?
Kanban
Scrum
Scrum directly satisfies the stem's three constraints: iterative development through fixed-length Sprints, time-boxed ceremonies such as the Daily Scrum and Sprint Review, and a Product Backlog ordered by the Product Owner. Its defined roles and artefacts give an Agile-inexperienced team the structural scaffolding they currently lack.
Lean
Extreme Programming (XP)
Which THREE of the following are core values of the Agile Manifesto?
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
This is one of the four values.
Responding to change over following a plan.
This is one of the four values.
Following a plan over responding to change.
Working software over comprehensive documentation.
This is one of the four values.
Contract negotiation over customer collaboration.
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Practice this domain36% of exam · 6 sample questions below
A project manager is reviewing the project charter and notices that the business case includes a cost-benefit analysis with a Net Present Value (NPV) of $50,000 and an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 12%. The company's required rate of return is 10%. What should the project manager conclude about this project?
The project is financially viable.
The IRR of 12% exceeds the company's required rate of return of 10%, and the NPV is positive at $50,000. Both indicators confirm the project generates value above the hurdle rate, satisfying the financial viability criterion in the stem.
The project's payback period is acceptable.
The project is expected to break even.
The project is not financially viable.
During project execution, a key stakeholder requests a significant change that will increase project scope. The project manager performs an impact analysis and determines that the change will delay the project by two weeks and increase costs by 10%. However, the change is critical for regulatory compliance. What should the project manager do first?
Approve the change because it is critical for compliance.
Reject the change because it will delay the project and increase costs.
Submit the change request to the change control board (CCB).
Because the change alters scope, schedule, and cost, it must follow integrated change control. Submitting the request to the change control board lets that authority evaluate the impact analysis and regulatory necessity before any baseline is updated.
Implement the change and request approval after.
A project manager is estimating the duration of an activity. The optimistic estimate is 4 days, the pessimistic is 12 days, and the most likely is 6 days. Using the PERT three-point estimate, what is the expected duration?
6.67 days
The PERT weighted average is (optimistic + 4 × most likely + pessimistic) ÷ 6, giving (4 + 24 + 12) ÷ 6 = 40 ÷ 6 ≈ 6.67 days. Weighting the most likely estimate fourfold accounts for expected variability in the activity's duration.
12 days
7.33 days
6 days
A project team is working on a software development project. The project manager notices that the team is spending too much time on unplanned work, resulting in delays to the critical path. What technique should the project manager use to reduce unplanned work and improve focus?
Apply crashing to the critical path activities.
Perform resource leveling to smooth resource usage.
Use fast tracking to overlap activities.
Implement critical chain project management.
Critical chain project management buffers tasks and removes multitasking, directly reducing unplanned work that delays the critical path. It satisfies the stem's constraint by protecting the schedule through resource-levelled buffers rather than padding individual task estimates.
A project manager is assigned to a project that is in the planning phase. The sponsor asks the project manager to include a 10% contingency reserve in the budget. The project manager knows that the project has a high degree of uncertainty. What should the project manager do?
Explain that contingency reserves are not allowed in the project budget.
Refuse the request because it is unethical.
Perform a quantitative risk analysis to determine appropriate contingency reserves.
Quantitative risk analysis models uncertainty numerically, typically via Monte Carlo simulation, producing a defensible contingency figure rather than an arbitrary 10%. This satisfies the stem's high-uncertainty constraint by deriving the reserve from the project's actual risk exposure and confidence level.
Add the 10% contingency reserve as requested.
A project manager is leading a software development project. The sponsor has requested a new feature that was not part of the original scope. The project manager assesses that adding this feature will require additional resources and will extend the timeline by two weeks. What should the project manager do first?
Refuse the request because it is out of scope.
Analyze the impact on the project constraints and submit a change request.
The project manager must first perform integrated change control by assessing how the added feature affects scope, schedule, cost and resources. Only then can a formal change request be submitted to the change control board for approval or rejection.
Instruct the team to implement the feature and track extra time as overtime.
Immediately update the project schedule and budget.
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Practice this domain17% of exam · 6 sample questions below
A project manager is developing the project schedule for a construction project. The team has identified all activities and their dependencies. Which tool should the project manager use to determine the critical path?
Work breakdown structure (WBS)
Critical path method (CPM)
With activities and dependencies already identified, the critical path method performs the forward and backward pass calculations over the network diagram, yielding each activity's float and identifying the longest path that fixes the project duration.
Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
Gantt chart
During project execution, a key stakeholder requests a change that will increase the project scope. The project manager evaluates the impact and determines it will require additional budget and time. What should the project manager do first?
Implement the change and update the project plan
Submit a change request to the change control board
Scope changes affecting budget and schedule must pass through integrated change control. Submitting a change request to the change control board first ensures the request is formally evaluated, approved, or rejected before any baselines are modified, preserving the project's approved scope, cost, and schedule.
Update the project baseline immediately
Reject the change because it impacts the baseline
A project manager is estimating activity durations for a software development project. The team has historical data from similar projects, but the current project involves new technology that could cause delays. Which estimating technique should the project manager use to account for uncertainty?
Parametric estimating
Analogous estimating
Three-point estimating
Three-point estimating uses optimistic, most likely and pessimistic durations to derive an expected value and range. This explicitly models the uncertainty introduced by unfamiliar technology, unlike single-point or analogous techniques that yield one deterministic figure.
Bottom-up estimating
Which TWO of the following are outputs of the Define Activities process? (Select exactly 2.)
Work breakdown structure
Activity attributes
Activity attributes are a documented output of Define Activities, extending the activity list with details such as predecessor relationships, leads and lags, resource requirements and imposed dates. They satisfy the stem's requirement for a Define Activities output rather than an input or tool.
Activity list
The Activity list is the primary output of Define Activities, enumerating every scheduled activity needed to complete project deliverables. It feeds subsequent processes such as sequencing and duration estimating, forming the foundation of the schedule baseline.
Project schedule
Risk register
Which THREE of the following are tools and techniques used in the Control Schedule process? (Select exactly 3.)
Rolling wave planning
Performance reviews
Used to compare actual vs planned.
Variance analysis
Identifies schedule variances.
Schedule compression
Crashing or fast tracking.
Critical path method
A project manager is developing the project schedule for a construction project. The team has identified that the foundation work must be completed before the framing can begin. Which type of dependency does this represent?
Mandatory dependency
A mandatory dependency is one required by the nature of the work or a contractual obligation, such as foundation work physically needing completion before framing. This is inherent to the construction sequence, not a discretionary choice by the team.
Lead
Discretionary dependency
External dependency
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Practice this domain27% of exam · 6 sample questions below
A project manager is leading a software development project. The business analyst has identified that the current requirements gathering process does not align with the enterprise's business analysis framework. The team is experiencing frequent scope changes and rework. What should the project manager do first to address this issue?
Immediately implement a change control process to manage scope changes.
Train the business analyst on the project's requirements gathering techniques.
Review the enterprise's business analysis framework and adjust the requirements process to comply with it.
Realigning the requirements process with the enterprise's business analysis framework addresses the root cause of the scope changes and rework. Reviewing the framework and adjusting the process to comply restores consistency with organisational standards before further requirements work proceeds, which is the appropriate first corrective action.
Update the requirements documentation to include a traceability matrix.
A business analyst is using a business analysis framework to identify stakeholders. Which technique is most effective for ensuring all affected parties are considered?
Brainstorming with the project team
Conducting one-on-one interviews with known stakeholders
Creating a stakeholder map and validating with experts
A stakeholder map visually categorises affected parties by influence and interest, exposing gaps that ad hoc lists miss. Validating it with subject matter experts confirms coverage of overlooked groups, directly satisfying the requirement to consider all affected parties.
Distributing a questionnaire to the organization
A business analyst is evaluating the performance of a business analysis framework after project completion. Which metric best indicates the effectiveness of the requirements management process?
Schedule variance
Number of requirements defects found post-implementation
Post-implementation requirements defects directly measure how well requirements were elicited, documented and managed, since each defect traces back to a missed, ambiguous or unvalidated requirement. This satisfies the stem's demand for an effectiveness metric by quantifying escaped errors rather than activity volume, giving the analyst concrete evidence of process performance after project completion.
Number of requirements traced to test cases
Stakeholder satisfaction survey results
A business analyst is selecting a business analysis framework for a small project with limited budget. Which framework characteristic is most important to consider?
Scalability to fit the project size and complexity
Scalability directly addresses the limited-budget constraint: a lightweight framework can be tailored to a small project's scope, avoiding overheads that larger methodologies impose. Selecting a framework whose ceremony and documentation scale down prevents wasted effort, keeping analysis proportionate to the project's size and complexity.
Alignment with industry standards
Comprehensiveness to cover all possible scenarios
Integration with existing project management tools
Which THREE of the following are techniques commonly used in business analysis frameworks to elicit requirements?
Prototyping
Prototyping builds a partial working model so stakeholders react to something concrete rather than abstract descriptions, surfacing requirements they cannot articulate verbally. This iterative feedback loop is a recognised elicitation technique in business analysis frameworks such as BABOK.
Interviews
Interviews are structured conversations with individual stakeholders that probe needs, expectations and constraints in depth. Their direct, two-way format lets the analyst clarify ambiguity immediately, making them a core elicitation technique in business analysis frameworks.
SWOT analysis
Critical path method
Document analysis
Document analysis examines existing artefacts — policies, procedures, contracts, system specifications — to extract requirements already implied or mandated. It reveals constraints stakeholders may overlook, making it a standard elicitation technique in business analysis frameworks.
You are a business analyst for a large retail company implementing a new inventory management system. The project uses a waterfall business analysis framework. During the requirements phase, you have completed stakeholder analysis, conducted interviews, and documented functional requirements. Now, during requirements validation, the warehouse manager (a key stakeholder) states that the system must support real-time inventory updates from handheld scanners, a requirement not previously mentioned. The project manager is concerned because this requirement could impact the budget and schedule, and the design phase is scheduled to begin next week. You have a requirements prioritization meeting tomorrow. The warehouse manager insists this is critical for operations. The project sponsor expects all requirements to be finalized before design. What is the best course of action?
Immediately escalate to the project sponsor to decide whether to include the requirement.
Add the requirement to the requirements document and adjust the project plan accordingly.
Analyze the impact of the requirement on cost, schedule, and scope, and present options at the prioritization meeting.
Analysing cost, schedule and scope impact and presenting options at the prioritisation meeting satisfies the sponsor's requirement that requirements be finalised before design, while giving stakeholders evidence to decide the late requirement's fate. Proceeding directly to design would breach the waterfall phase gate.
Reject the requirement because it was not identified during elicitation and will delay the project.
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Practice this domainThe CAPM exam has 150 questions and must be completed in 150 minutes. PMI uses a Proficient/Needs Improvement/Below Proficient rating — not a numerical score out of 1000.
Scenario-based project management questions covering planning, execution, monitoring, and controlling processes.
The exam covers 4 domains: Agile Frameworks and Methodologies, Project Management Fundamentals and Core Concepts, Predictive Plan-Based Methodologies, Business Analysis Frameworks. Questions are weighted by domain — higher-weight domains appear more on your actual exam.
No. These are original exam-style practice questions written against the official PMI CAPM exam objectives. They are not copied from the real exam. Courseiva focuses on genuine understanding, not memorisation of braindumps.
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