Free PMP® Exam Practice Questions

1. The executive steering committee of your organization is in the process of selecting projects for the next fiscal year. During that meeting you are called in to explain to the committee various approaches to selecting projects. One committee member prefers to use a method that shows the series of the sum of discounted cash flows, given a specific interest rate. Which of the following methods will you use?

2. As a project manager for the development of a new internal payroll system, you are meeting with the Chief Financial Officer, who is also the project sponsor, to gather requirements. In your meeting she states that she requires the new payroll system to be completed and internally tested no later than March 30, so the new system can go live at the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1st. Which of the following is the best description for this date and where will it be documented?

3. You are the project manager for a Silicon Valley-based hard drive manufacturer. In your newest project, the allowable deviation for hard drive access time is ±100 milliseconds. One of your vendors is producing the key component that affects access time. The vendor delivers documents with the latest shipment that states the components are within specifications. Your team installs a random number of these components and conducts a quality test. The aggregate deviation found by your team is 105 milliseconds, but the team says this variation from the permissible deviation is negligible. As the project manager, your best choice in this situation is which of the following?

4. As a project manager for a multi-family housing construction project, you decided to phase your project for ease of management. In your discussions with your sponsor and potential vendors, you are taking suggestions for names of the phases so everyone can understand the project. You have whittled the list down to the following four suggestions. Which one of the following would you not choose?

5. You have just been assigned and are taking over a project in the middle of planning. You just finished reviewing all of the documentation available to you. You determine that the previous project manager spent more time becoming friends with the team members rather than planning the project. This resulted in great teamwork within the team, but key pieces of information such as the WBS are missing. The project sponsor tells you that planning for this project must be completed in the next few days. As the project manager which of the following items should you do first?

6. You're working as a project manager for an aircraft parts company. Your team is determining the possible risks in a project for a new type of airline seat. They have identified a possible threat that the new airline seat may not be approved by the FAA, and it has a 50-50 chance this threat will occur. If it does, the cost impact to the project will be $100,000. The team is also identified a threat of a change in technology for the audio systems of the new seat. This threat has a 20% chance of occurring and would cost the project $100,000. What is the total EMV of these threats?

7. In your project you believe the current variances occurred because of extraneous factors, and you do not expect similar variances to occur in future. The information you have is BAC = $300,000; AC = $100,000; EV = $150,000; CPI = 1.5. What is the estimate at completion (EAC) for your project?

8. You are the project manager for the construction of a new condominium project. During the course of the project, the plumbing and electrical subcontractors are continually having disagreements, causing a delay in the project schedule which is upsetting the customer. There is no resolution of this disagreement in the foreseeable future. You have a meeting with the two subcontractors and everybody agrees on four options to reach a final resolution. Of these four options which is the best?

9. You are the project manager in a pharmaceutical company which has a project-oriented organizational structure and your project is nearing completion. You discover your team members are more interested in finding new projects or positions within the company, rather than completing the project work. Their motivation is based upon:

10. You recently took over the management of a FDA approved drug delivery project. The project is in the executing phase and the previous project manager has left the organization. You realize the project is seriously behind schedule and over budget. After talking with the project team, and discussions with the project management team regarding the issues, you still have not been able to discern the reason for the schedule variances. The team is working well, and from what you can see, should be on schedule and within budget. As you begin to review the progress that has been made so far, and compare that to the schedule, you see that certain tasks have taken significantly longer and incurred more costs than originally estimated. The research and development work was estimated to take one month, but actually took two months and cost 30% more than anticipated. Development of the initial batch was scheduled to take two months, but actually took three and cost more than planned. Clinical trials also took longer than expected. Your analysis also indicates that the period during which these activities were being carried out had much more FDA oversight than expected. Based on this information, what would be the most likely reason for the variances in the project schedule and budget?

11. Your company is developing a new financial vehicle to sell to clients. The project team is in the process of identifying risks. Which of the following would not be classified as a risk?

12. Your project team has just completed the final component of a three year long project that cost $20 million. The final product has been transitioned to operations and maintenance, a final lessons learned meeting has been held, all contracts have been closed and all post-project support requirements have been identified, documented and agreed upon with the customer. You have been offered a promotion due to the resounding success of this project. As part of project closure what is the next thing you will do?

13. You are the project manager for a large manufacturing project. You're expecting one of your team members to hand-deliver a deliverable to you by the end of the day. Toward the end of the day you notice the team member has not arrived and you call to find out the status of that deliverable. The team member tells you that he was unable to get to your office so they sent the deliverable via e-mail. You explain to the team member that the reason you needed this deliverable hand delivered was so that you could give it a final once over before it is given to the client. The team member tells you that they informed you that sending this deliverable via e-mail, rather than in person, could occur due to their work schedule. What could've been done to avoid this situation?

14. You're about halfway done with your project and everything is on schedule and within budget. All of a sudden, many change requests come from multiple stakeholders. After all of the changes were documented, you spent time with the stakeholders to discover why there were so many and ascertain if there were any more expected to come. The project work has now quieted down and returned to normal. Just before a status meeting one of the team members casually mentions they have added a small feature to the end product, and added, "Don't worry, it did not have an impact on time, cost, or quality." What is the first thing you should do?

15. You are managing a project for a US Government entity and everyone on the project has been on edge and tense lately due to senior management's pressure to finish the project on time. The tension has grown so much that your status and team meetings degrade into shouting matches where the team members are pointing fingers at each other for missed deadlines. One of the team members is asking to be excused from future meetings, citing the tension is upsetting to them. The project sponsor has now expressed interest in attending the team meetings to better understand how the project is performing, the issues involved for completing the project and the customer is talking about adding project scope. In this situation which of the following would be the best approach for the project manager to take?

16. You're the project manager for an international project to deliver aluminum molding equipment. The customer has accepted all of the product deliverables, but the PMO is still waiting on the final project closure report. The customer was so pleased with the outcome, they wrote a very nice letter to your company CEO, detailing how professional you and the team were. In the letter they also state their next project is beginning next month and they want your company to do the work. What is the current status of the project?

17. You have just been informed that you will be project manager of a project in a highly technical area in which you have limited familiarity. It will begin in three months, is valued at $10 million and is being performed under a fixed price contract. The first thing you do is locate and review the project charter, when you discover that seven individuals have signed this document. Which of the following tasks concerns you the most?

18. You are assisting the PMO director in project selection. The executive steering committee has identified four possible projects, but can only do one with the remaining funds in this fiscal year. Project A has an internal rate of return (IRR) of 21% and an NPV of $200,000. Project B has an IRR of 20% and an NPV of $180,000. Project C has an IRR of 7% and an NPV of $180,000. Project D has an IRR of 13% and an NPV of $110,000. Based on this information which project would you recommend and what is the opportunity cost?

19. You are the project manager for a multi-year, US Government sponsored project involving the use and consumption of materials such as gold, silver & copper. You have assembled the best possible team to complete the planning and work on this project. Senior management is cost sensitive and would prefer to reduce risk on this project. Which of the following contract types would you use to ease senior management's concerns?

20. In your project for a new interplanetary, space-based telescope the team is performing quality testing. The telescope's focusing mount is out of adjustment causing inaccurate data during the test. You call the team together to discuss the root cause of the problem as well as options and the impact they could have on the rest of the project. Which of the following documents would you create to discover the underlying problem?

21. You are managing a large database project with more than 100 team members. Several of the experts on your team are nationally known and recognized for their work on such projects. Your team members are both pleased and concerned to be working with such knowledgeable individuals. Your team members in their own right, are very experienced as well but are concerned about sharing their thoughts in front of the nationally known experts. As the project manager which of the following is most important?

22. You are the project manager for a presidential primary campaign. Even though all members of the team have the same philosophical approach and support the candidate, there is conflict between the communications staff and the policy staff. You did not choose the members that fill the leadership position in each of these areas - these were chosen by the candidate. After a few months on the campaign trail, you have made specific observations about each of the leaders in these areas. Through discussion with each person individually you discovered that each one has vastly different reasons for being there. The communications leader is there because they believed in and want to help get the candidate's message across to help people recover from the recent recession. The leader of the policy staff is there because they want a high-ranking, high-paying position in the US Government once the candidate is elected president. Which of the following theories applies in this situation?

23. During project human resource planning, you identified all resources required to complete the project. You are now getting those resources confirmed when you discover that the engineering department can only provide your project with two engineers, instead of the four you planned. Which of the following is an appropriate first response?

24. You and the project management team are in the process of identifying stakeholders prior to project planning. As a team, it is decided that stakeholder traits, such as their ability to impose their will on the project and their need for immediate attention will be collected, quantified and graphed. Which of the following tools will you use to display this information?

25. During a civil engineering project, one of your team members comes to you and asks you if they can use an unconventional way of estimating. As the project manager, you are somewhat familiar with the application area but you are not an expert. You ask the team member to explain the benefits and the risks of this estimating approach. On the surface this, approach seems to result in more accurate information and takes less than one third of the total time of normal estimating methods in your organization. Prior to giving final approval to the team member to use this new way of estimating what should the project manager do?

26. You are the project manager for a new floating bridge project across a lake. The HR department has determined that if the organization does not hire the engineer for the last year of the project, the company will spend $20,000 in overtime wages and benefits. You are asked by senior management to analyze the possible outcome of hiring a new engineer for the last year of the project, and make a decision based on all the probabilities. You have been told by the senior engineer that the probability the new engineer will be a top performer is 40%. The probability the engineer will be an average performer is 60%. The company will spend $5,000 just to hire the engineer. The engineer's first years salary is estimated at $65,000. If they are a top performer, they will "earn" $65,000 for the project. If they are an average performer, they will "earn" only $35,000 for the project. Should you hire the engineer?

27. The project manager of an international corporation is leading and directing a project team in the development of a component for a new product offering. The engineering division is a matrix organization, which part of the project manager's team comes from, and has a firm policy of no salary bonuses for work done on projects. The success of this project, which has a firm timeline that is already been approved by senior management, is crucial to the success of the new product offering. The project manager has overheard conversations amongst the team members, expressing their displeasure at not being rewarded for their extra effort. What is the first thing the project manager should do?

28. Your company is a nationally-recognized organization for getting projects done on time, on scope, and on budget. Your project is approximately 85% complete and you just finished the monthly status meeting with the customer. In that meeting the customer informed you that they have run out of money to pay for the rest of the project. What is the first thing you should do?

29. Your organization has decided to do project management. You have been assigned as the lead project manager since you have your credential in project management. Upon discussing the company's vision for performing project management, you develop most of the processes you are familiar to fit into their framework. Where do these processes reside?

30. You are a team member on a project that has a tight schedule. A fellow team member informs you that there is an issue on their activity and it cannot be started on the day it is scheduled to start. Another manager overhears this conversation and reports to senior management that the project will be late. Later you receive a copy of the project manager's most recent status report that says "the project is still expected to be completed on time." Which of the following reasons would serve as a basis for the project manager to make such a statement?

31. You are the project manager for a new product and have a budget of $8 million. You are well into execution and your project is on time, on scope, and on budget. You received a phone call this morning from your project sponsor who expressed concern about the project. According to the schedule baseline, the project should be nearing implementation, but the project sponsor is unaware of the current status of the project. You remind the sponsor that, according to the plan, your status reports are distributed weekly via e-mail. The project sponsor says that e-mail is too impersonal and they prefer a verbal update. This situation suggests problems on which of the following?

32. A project manager has a team of 26 and the project affects eight departments within the organization. The project is over 50% complete and the project has received high marks on the performance reports from five of the eight departments. The project manager decides to hold a party to celebrate the current success of the project and they invite key stakeholders from all of the affected departments in order to give them an opportunity to communicate the good things happening on the project to the departments that have yet been affected. At the party, the project manager attempts to discover any relevant information that would help the project continue to be, or become more of a success. While walking around they overhear one of the department managers discussing the possibility of setting up more frequent meetings on the project. What is the best thing the project manager should do first?

33. Senior management of your organization has included an incentive for you to complete the project early. They have promised you part of the incentive fee from the FPIF contract. During the completion of a major component the quality team informs you that the component meets the quality requirements as outlined in the contract but will not meet the level of functionality the customer requires. If this component is late the project will not be completed early. Which of the following is the best action you should take?

34. You've lead your team through the procurement planning process. Several procurement specialists on your team were integral in completing the procurement management plan. You are reviewing a list that you will use to score the bids and award a contract to the best qualified vendor. You want to ensure that you complete this process thoroughly and use all available information to you. Which of the following documents would not be included as part of the evaluation?

35. The earned value on your project is $150,000, the planned value is $200,000. You've actually spent $180,000 to date. What is the efficiency rate of your schedule?

36. You are the project manager and are preparing for your quarterly status update briefing with the project's financial backer. You have prepared some critical path information for inclusion in the status report, as depicted in the table below.

37. A team member privately informs you that a contractor is making unwelcome advances towards them. Since this is your first major project as a project manager you want to ensure that you handle the situation delicately. The team member stated that they have repeatedly requested that the advances stop using very clear language with the vendor. The team member does not want to upset the vendor due to the high visibility of the project. Which of the following is the best course of action to take first?

38. As the project manager for the development of a new payroll system, you have many subject matter experts from many different industries working in your project. The chief operating officer (COO) and chief financial officer (CFO) are co-sponsors. The CFO delivers a change request form with a note stating the change will probably result in an additional cost of $50,000 and an additional three weeks to the schedule. The change control board (CCB) will be meeting next week. What is the first thing you should do?

39. Last week you were selected as the project manager for a new marketing project, with an international consulting organization. You recently have identified your team and you're about to have a meeting regarding team behavior, team expectations, and notifying them of the objectives of the project. One team member suggests that a set of rules be written down so that everybody is aware of what is expected of them. Which of the following groups should develop these rules?

40. You are observing the project team conducting a quality tests on one of your major deliverables. This test is designed to measure the precision and accuracy of the deliverable's output and the team has charted the outcome in the graph below. The center point of the graph is the target measurement. From the information on the chart below what is the best description of the deliverables output?

41. You are approximately 50% physically complete with your project. The project sponsor has just asked you, the project manager, for a listing of when and how each of your staff is going to be released from the project. Which of the following documents will you present to the project sponsor to answer their question?

42. You are mentoring a new, junior project manager and they come to you with the question about the terms quality and grade. They are not quite sure they understand the difference between these two. Which of the following statements is true?

43. You have just recently taken over as project manager for a small commercial construction project. The previous project manager was not the best at completely documenting all information. Upon reviewing the documentation left to you by the previous project manager, you notice the following graph and it is labeled as the last known update to the project. The graph has no specific numbers assigned to each of the plot points and there is no supporting documentation. Which of the following statements is true based upon this graph?

44. You are in the middle of your project and are conducting your tenth project status meeting. At each status meeting you request an update of the current work in progress, the status of any work completed since the last status meeting and a forecast of work is expected to be complete by the next status meeting. One of the team members, recently hired by the company and added to your team, believes that the way you requested updates is not possible, since the work that they do is "highly creative" and hard to measure in order to give the current status. Which of the following methods of measurement for their work would be appropriate in this situation?

45. You are a project manager and are currently involved in risk analysis. The team has identified all potential risks, prioritized them based upon their probability of occurrence and their impact to the project if they occurred. You're now looking at each risk and its impact the overall project objectives. The project sponsor has asked you to provide a contingency reserve figure by the end of the day. Since your organization's risk attitude is considered risk-neutral, you decide to multiply the probability by the actual impact of each risk. Which of the following techniques have you employed?

46. A vendor on your project has just completed their last deliverable. They are asking for payment for the invoice submitted to you. You state that the last deliverable did not meet all the requirements and approach the seller with this information. In the contract, there is a specific term used that means one thing in your industry and in something different in the general use of the term. The seller disputes the claim and you both agree to mediation. Which of the following carries more weight in this contract dispute?

47. You're managing a new project with an organization that recently dealt with two major disasters on the previous two projects. The first disaster occurred because the requirements were not clear. The second disaster occurred because critical IT servers were not made redundant. When a server disk drive crashed the system went down and caused major delays. The project sponsor has made it clear that they do not expect these types of problems to occur on your project, so it is imperative you consider strategies to manage these two particular risks. You decide to design in redundancy and employ a more stringent requirements gathering technique. Respectively, these two actions would be considered which of the following?

48. You have been given the following information from your project team, and are now ready to develop the project schedule. You have a schedule constraint of finish no later than date 35. Based upon the information in the table below, what is the project float?

49. You just completed developing the schedule for your project. You have set a tentative date for starting the project on March 1. Based upon the schedule, the project will be completed by December 15. The project sponsor comes to you and says the project must be completed by December 1. Which of the following is not considered a schedule compression technique?

50. You are heading a large international project for your organization. You been informed that this project will be one of the largest virtual teams ever assembled and managed in the history of the organization. You find that you have a project sponsor in a different country along with 25 electrical engineers, three architects plus their staff, two mechanical engineers, and three maintenance experts. In order to ensure the project is done correctly, you schedule weekly meetings over the internet with software that allows the use of cameras. What is your biggest challenge when employing a virtual team?