To see the answers to these sample questions, please click on the link provided at the bottom of the page.
Question 1: The PMBOK® Guide is an example of
A.) A project management methodology.
B.) A standard.
C.) A regulation.
D.) A university textbook.
Question 2: EV=100, CPI=1, SV=80. How much is Earned Value?
A.) 100
B.) 1
C.) 1.5
D.) 0
Question 3: You have just arrived in London where you will spend three days reviewing a proposal with a vendor. The vendor calls you and invites you to dinner. What do you do?
A.) You decline the invitation on the grounds that it will jeopardize your objectivity.
B.) You lie to the vendor and tell him that you have been invited out to dinner by relatives every night that you are here.
C.) You don't return his phone call.
D.) You accept the invitation.
Question 4: Which of the following is not a Tool & Technique of Define Activities?
A.) Decomposition.
B.) Templates.
C.) Milestones.
D.) Expert Judgment.
Question 5: Who should sign the Project Charter?
A.) The Project Manager.
B.) A project initiator external to the project organization.
C.) The CEO.
D.) The most senior project team member.
Tip: If you don't know the answer to #5, then listen to this free PrepCast episode:
Question 6: What percentage is usually given as the % that a project manager spends communicating?
A.) At least 25%.
B.) No more than 75%.
C.) 80%.
D.) 90%.
Question 7: What is Quality according to the PMBOK® Guide?
A.) The degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements.
B.) The customer's need to be involved in the process.
C.) The process of identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project.
D.) Quality is inspected not built into a result.
Question 8: You are on a team that has five members including you. How many communication channels do you personally have?
A.) 5.
B.) 4.
C.) 10.
D.) 12.
Question 9: EV=100. AC=90. PV=110. BAC=400. How much is the Cost Variance?
A.) 300.
B.) -20.
C.) 20.
D.) 10.
Question 10: Your team finished creating the Risk Register during your latest workshop. What is the next thing that you should do?
A.) Define for each risk the probability of occurrence and the impact.
B.) Identify the risk effects and assign a numerical rating to each.
C.) Review cost planning to ensure that enough risk reserve is available..
D.) Identify, analyze and plan for newly arisen risks.
Question 11: You have been assigned as the project manager of a highly strategic project in your company. This project will either make or break your company. It is highly visible and sponsored directly by the Board of directors who have decided that you need to have maximum control over all project resources. What is the best project organization in this case?
A.) Weak Matrix.
B.) PMO.
C.) Projectized.
D.) Project Expeditor.
Question 12: Which of the following processes does not have Organizational Process Assets as an input?
A.) Perform Integrated Change Control.
B.) Close Project or Phase.
C.) Collect Requirements.
D.) Define Activities.
Question 13: You are setting aside 15% of your baseline hardware cost to counteract the risk of hardware cost increases as well as technological advances. What is this called?
A.) Reserve Analysis.
B.) Residual Risk.
C.) Contingency Reserve.
D.) Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled.
Question 14: What is a Work Breakdown Structure?
A.) A hierarchically organized depiction of the project organization.
B.) A hierarchical structure of resource categories.
C.) It is not part of the project plan.
D.) A deliverables-oriented decomposition of the project work.
Question 15: You are the project manager of a project in which you need to install a very sensitive machine. For some reason, this machine is not working properly and your senior engineer believes that there may be various factors (technical, environment, construction etc.) involved in the recurring breakdown. For your status report you would like to graphically display these various and possibly unrelated factors. What type of diagram illustrates this best?
A.) Control Chart.
B.) Influence Diagram.
C.) Ishikawa diagram.
D.) Pareto Diagram.
Question 16: You are meeting with a customer for initial discussions of a software implementation project. At the end of the day, the customer asks you for a general estimate of the project duration. Based on your experience with three similar past projects you estimate an 8-10 month implementation time. What is this type of estimation technique called?
A.) Three-point estimating.
B.) Bottom-up estimating.
C.) WAG.
D.) Analogous estimating.
Question 17: Your spouse informs you that his department is evaluating vendors for a project. You realize that your own company offers such a product. The next day your spouse brings home the request for proposal. What should you do?
A.) Don't bid on this project.
B.) Disclose how you learned about the project and submit your proposal.
C.) Have your co-worker submit the proposal.
D.) Get a divorce.
Question 18: There is only one output to the Plan Risk Management process. Which one is it?
A.) Risk Register.
B.) Risk Management Plan.
C.) Risk Related Contractual Agreements.
D.) Organizational Process Assets (Updates).
Question 19: A team member on the project is consistently delivering her work packages late and below the required quality standards. The issue has been discussed with her several times but no improvement was visible. As project manager you decide that it is time to employ coercive power. What measure will you implement?
A.) You punish her by removing the privilege to work from home for two days per week.
B.) You bargain with her to give her better assignments if she performs.
C.) You discuss the situation with her line manager.
D.) You ask the Human Resources department to step in.
Question 20: You are at a critical stage on your project. Unfortunately your senior technician and the solutions manager from your vendor are not getting along. What is the best thing to do?
A.) Ignore the situation. It's just a personal conflict.
B.) Ask the vendor to replace the solutions manager.
C.) Talk to each and tell them that it is clearly the other ones fault.
D.) Bring the two together to solve the problem.
Question 21: You work in a strong matrix organization. Which of the following is not part of your responsibilities as a project manager?
A.) Lead the weekly team meetings.
B.) Participate in scope definition.
C.) Respond to questions from your sponsor (board of directors).
D.) Leading the annual performance review of your project team members.
Question 22: Your project aims at replacing all of your internal photocopy machines. You have been given a large set of requirements from the users. You have evaluated solutions from four vendors and you realize that not every vendor can satisfy all requirements. There is some risk involved and you decide to use the Expected Monetary Value method to analyze the problem. If you just used EMV, which of the following vendors would you select?
A.) Vendor 1: 80% probability of success and making a profit of £20,000.
B.) Vendor 2: 90% probability of success and making a profit of £19,000.
C.) Vendor 3: 75% probability of success and making a profit of £18,000.
D.) Vendor 4: 85% probability of success and making a profit of £20,000.
Question 23: Planned Value = €30,000. Earned Value = €29,000.
A.) CPI = 0.96.
B.) The project is ahead of schedule.
C.) The project has a positive Cost Variance.
D.) The project is behind schedule.
Question 24: You speak with the department manager of the quality assurance group. He tells you that in his experience all people are lazy and without constant supervision nothing would ever get done. He also mentions that the only reason why people are taking any responsibility around here is because we have such a good incentive program. What theory best describes this manager?
A.) Theory X.
B.) Theory Y.
C.) Theory Z.
D.) Theory P.
Question 25: Your sponsor is positively surprised by your style of project management. However, in your presentation you mentioned the Code of Accounts. She is unfamiliar with the term and asks for clarification. Which of the following would you use to explain the Code of Accounts?
A.) The Management Reserve notes in the Risk Register.
B.) Project Budget.
C.) Work Breakdown Structure.
D.) Risk Breakdown Structure.
Question 26: What are scope, quality, schedule, budget, resources, and risks called collectively?
A.) The six core knowledge areas.
B.) Unimportant.
C.) Project phases.
D.) Competing project constraints.
Question 27: You are working with HR on analyzing the staffing and assignments for your project. Which of the following documents would you primarily refer to during this process?
A.) Resource Breakdown Structure.
B.) Organizational Breakdown Structure.
C.) Work Breakdown Structure.
D.) Program Summary Work Breakdown Structure.
Question 28: You are measuring the dimensions of a highly critical component in your project manufactured by one of your subcontractors. Failure of this component is a huge risk factor and would lead to major delays and possibly a failed project. What Process Group does this activity belong to?
A.) Project Risk Management.
B.) Monitor & Control.
C.) Verify Scope.
D.) Executing.
Question 29: Your customer calls you on the phone and informs you of a minor change to a requirement on the project. What is the best thing to do?
A.) Analyze the request and its consequences on the project.
B.) Instruct your engineer to implement this minor change.
C.) Request documentation for this change.
D.) Note it in the weekly status report.
Question 30: Which of the following is not part of the Risk Register?
A.) Root causes.
B.) Management Reserve amount.
C.) Trends.
D.) Probability of achieving cost & time objectives.