ITIL4F ITIL Management Practices Practice Question
An organization has a change that must be implemented immediately to prevent a major financial loss. According to ITIL 4, what type of change is this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse 'urgent' with 'standard' or 'normal,' forgetting that ITIL 4 explicitly defines emergency changes for situations requiring immediate implementation to avoid major financial or operational impact.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Emergency change
According to ITIL 4, an emergency change is a change that must be implemented as soon as possible to resolve an incident or prevent a major financial loss. This type of change bypasses the normal change advisory board (CAB) process and follows a separate, expedited procedure to minimize risk while ensuring speed.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Service request
Why it's wrong here
Service requests are formal requests from a user for something standard, such as information, a standard service component, or access to a service. They are typically pre-defined, often automated, and follow a predictable fulfillment process, not designed for the immediate, unplanned implementation of a change to a service or infrastructure component that requires urgent attention due to an incident or potential impact.
- ✓
Emergency change
Why this is correct
Emergency changes are specifically designed for changes that must be implemented as soon as possible, typically to resolve an incident or implement a critical security patch, where delaying the change would cause significant business impact or risk. They bypass some steps of the normal change process, such as full assessment and authorization, to expedite implementation, with authorization often delegated or performed retrospectively.
- ✗
Standard change
Why it's wrong here
Standard changes are low-risk, pre-authorized changes that are well-understood and can be implemented without additional authorization each time. While they are often automated and efficient, their defining characteristic is their routine, repetitive nature and low impact, making them unsuitable for an urgent, unplanned situation that requires immediate, non-routine intervention.
- ✗
Normal change
Why it's wrong here
Normal changes are changes that need to be scheduled, assessed, and authorized following a standard change workflow. This process typically involves multiple stages of evaluation, approval, and planning to ensure risks are understood and mitigated, which, by its very nature, introduces lead time and is therefore inappropriate for a situation demanding immediate, unscheduled implementation.
Visual reference
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every ITIL4F question from scratch — 531 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This ITIL4F practice question is part of Courseiva's free PeopleCert 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 ITIL4F exam.