PMP Practice Test

PMP practice test: what's covered

• PMI
• People
• Process
• Business Environment
• Predictive + Agile + Hybrid

Free PMP sample questions

1. Two senior developers on an agile team openly disagree about the technical approach for a critical feature, and the tension is starting to affect daily standups. As the project manager applying a servant-leadership mindset, what should you do first?

   • A. Escalate the disagreement to the functional managers so they can decide
   • B. Bring both developers together to surface the underlying interests and facilitate a collaborative resolution
   • C. Make the technical decision yourself to end the debate quickly
   • D. Reassign one of the developers to a different team to remove the friction
   Show answer

   Correct: B. The most effective conflict-resolution mode is collaborate/problem-solve, which addresses root causes and preserves the relationship. Escalating (B-style avoidance) removes the team's ownership and is a common trap; deciding for them (forcing) damages buy-in; reassigning avoids the real issue.

2. A project manager notices a normally vocal team member has gone quiet and is missing commitments after a personal setback. What demonstrates the strongest emotional intelligence?

   • A. Document the missed commitments in the next performance review
   • B. Privately check in with empathy to understand what support the person needs
   • C. Publicly remind the whole team about accountability for commitments
   • D. Wait for the team member to raise the issue themselves
   Show answer

   Correct: B. Self-awareness and empathy (core EI components) call for a private, supportive conversation. Documenting first (B) is the punitive trap; a public reminder shames the person; waiting passively ignores a visible signal a leader should act on.

3. During Scrum sprint planning, the team consistently over-commits and fails to finish the sprint backlog. As the team's coach, what is the best long-term action?

   • A. Assign the unfinished stories as overtime so the sprint still meets its goal
   • B. Let the team inspect its own velocity data and adjust how much work it pulls in
   • C. Increase the sprint length so more work can be completed each iteration
   • D. Pre-assign each story to a specific developer to enforce accountability
   Show answer

   Correct: B. Self-organizing teams improve by inspecting empirical velocity and right-sizing their commitment (empiricism + self-management). Mandating overtime (B) burns the team out and hides the real problem; lengthening the sprint reduces feedback frequency; pre-assigning work breaks self-organization.

4. A key stakeholder keeps bypassing the project manager and giving conflicting direction directly to team members. What is the most appropriate first response?

   • A. Instruct the team to ignore any direction that does not come through you
   • B. Have a direct conversation with the stakeholder to align on communication channels and engagement expectations
   • C. Immediately escalate the behavior to the project sponsor
   • D. Add a formal change request every time the stakeholder gives direction
   Show answer

   Correct: B. Stakeholder engagement starts with direct, respectful dialogue to set expectations and protect the team. Telling the team to ignore them (B) creates an adversarial split; jumping to the sponsor skips the lowest-effective-escalation step; logging change requests does not fix the relationship problem.

5. You are forming a new virtual team spread across three time zones. To build trust and shared understanding early, which actions should you take? (Choose 2)

   • A. Send a detailed written charter and expect everyone to read it on their own
   • B. Hold a kickoff that establishes team agreements and working norms together
   • C. Default all communication to email to create a written record
   • D. Identify fair overlap hours so the whole team has synchronous time
   • E. Designate one time zone's working hours as the standard everyone must follow
   Show answer

   Correct: B and D. Distributed teams need co-created ground rules and fair overlap windows to build trust. A read-it-yourself charter skips the relational kickoff; email-only kills synchronous bonding; imposing one zone's hours breeds resentment and ignores fairness.

Last updated: 2026-10-19

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