Quick Answer
The answer is Mitigate, because adding extra resources to the critical path directly reduces the impact of a potential two-week delay. Mitigation is a risk response strategy focused on lowering either the probability or the severity of a risk event, and here the project manager is proactively decreasing the delay’s effect by increasing capacity on the critical path. On the CompTIA Project+ PK0-005 exam, this concept tests your ability to distinguish Mitigate from Accept, Avoid, and Transfer—a common trap is confusing Mitigate with Avoid, but Avoid eliminates the risk entirely (e.g., changing the project scope), while Mitigate only lessens its consequences. A helpful memory tip: think of Mitigate as “making it less bad” without making it go away—like adding a safety net, not removing the tightrope.
This PK0-005 practice question tests your understanding of project management concepts. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A project manager is working on a software development project. The team has identified a potential risk that could cause a two-week delay. The project manager decides to add extra resources to the critical path to reduce the impact. Which risk response strategy is being used?
Accept
Why wrong: Acceptance involves acknowledging the risk without proactive action.
Mitigate
Correct. Adding resources to reduce impact is a mitigation strategy.
Avoid
Why wrong: Avoidance involves changing the plan to eliminate the risk.
Transfer
Why wrong: Transfer shifts risk to a third party, e.g., insurance or contracts.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Mitigate
Adding extra resources to the critical path to reduce the impact of a potential two-week delay is a classic example of the Mitigate risk response strategy. Mitigation aims to reduce the probability or impact of a risk, and here the project manager is proactively reducing the impact by increasing capacity on the critical path. This is not accepting the risk, avoiding it, or transferring it to a third party.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Accept
Why it's wrong here
Acceptance involves acknowledging the risk without proactive action.
Mitigate
Why this is correct
Correct. Adding resources to reduce impact is a mitigation strategy.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Avoid
Why it's wrong here
Avoidance involves changing the plan to eliminate the risk.
Transfer
Why it's wrong here
Transfer shifts risk to a third party, e.g., insurance or contracts.
Common exam traps
Cisco often tests the distinction between Mitigate and Avoid, where candidates mistakenly choose Avoid because they think adding resources eliminates the risk, but Avoid requires removing the risk source entirely, not just reducing its impact.
Detailed technical explanation
In project management, the critical path is the sequence of tasks that determines the project's minimum duration; adding resources to critical path tasks can reduce their duration (crashing) but may introduce new risks like increased cost or communication overhead. The Mitigate strategy is often implemented through contingency reserves or parallel tasking, and it differs from Avoidance which requires changing the project scope or approach entirely. Real-world software projects might use mitigation by adding senior developers to a bottleneck task to shorten the delay, while still accepting that some delay risk remains.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A small business has 20 workstations on the 192.168.1.0/24 network and one public IP from its ISP. The router uses PAT (NAT overload) so all 20 devices share one public address using different source ports. NAT questions test whether you understand the four address terms and which direction each translation applies.
What to study next
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FAQ
Project Management Concepts — This question tests Project Management Concepts — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Mitigate — Adding extra resources to the critical path to reduce the impact of a potential two-week delay is a classic example of the Mitigate risk response strategy. Mitigation aims to reduce the probability or impact of a risk, and here the project manager is proactively reducing the impact by increasing capacity on the critical path. This is not accepting the risk, avoiding it, or transferring it to a third party.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. Match each risk response strategy to its description.
mediumWhy : These are standard risk response strategies for threats and opportunities.
Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
This PK0-005 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PK0-005 exam.
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