PMP Practice Questions

You are managing a complex systems integration project with 12 external vendors and 45 internal team members. The network diagram shows 8 paths through the project, with the critical path having 14 months duration and 4 months total float across all activities. During month 6, you perform schedule compression analysis because a key stakeholder requests moving the completion date forward by 3 months. Your analysis shows: fast-tracking would create 18 new dependency relationships and increase risk significantly; crashing the critical path would cost $2.4M for a 2-month reduction; adding resources to near-critical Path B (currently 11 months with 3 months float) could reduce it to 8 months for $800K. The stakeholder has approved a budget increase of up to $1.5M for acceleration. What is the MOST effective approach?

October 9, 2026

You are managing a defense contractor project using a firm-fixed-price contract worth $28M. During planning, you identified 47 risks and developed response plans with allocated contingency reserves totaling $2.1M. At the 60% completion point, you have consumed $1.85M of contingency reserves, primarily due to three risks that materialized with greater impact than anticipated. You identify a new high-probability, high-impact risk related to a critical supplier's financial instability that could halt production of a custom component with no alternative sources. The risk response would require $450K for a mitigation strategy (qualifying a second supplier). Your remaining contingency reserve is $250K, and management reserves are $800K controlled by the sponsor. What should you do?

October 9, 2026

Your construction project has a 16-month duration with four major phase gates requiring customer sign-off. You are currently in month 11, approaching the third phase gate. Quality inspections reveal that 23% of the concrete structural work completed in the previous phase has microfractures that don't meet specifications, likely due to temperature control issues during curing. The work passed initial inspections but was caught during detailed pre-gate review. Remediation will cost $1.2M and delay the phase gate by 8 weeks. The customer relationship is already strained from previous minor delays. The quality manager suggests accepting the work since the microfractures are within building code minimums, though not project specifications. What is the BEST course of action?

October 9, 2026

You are managing a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility construction project following a waterfall approach. The design phase deliverables were approved three months ago, and construction is 40% complete. A new regulatory requirement has been published that mandates additional safety features in the HVAC system, requiring significant design changes. The change will cost $2.8M (8% of the total budget) and add 6 weeks to the critical path. The regulatory compliance officer insists this is a mandatory change and not subject to change control. Your project charter states that regulatory compliance changes require automatic approval. What should you do FIRST?

October 9, 2026

You are managing a large-scale infrastructure project with a 24-month timeline and a budget of $45 million. During the eighth month, earned value analysis shows: PV = $15M, EV = $12M, AC = $13.5M. Your sponsor is concerned about the schedule variance and asks whether the project can still finish on time within the original budget. You calculate TCPI based on BAC and determine it is 1.18. The project team's historical performance shows they typically achieve a CPI between 0.85 and 0.95 on similar projects. What is the MOST appropriate recommendation?

October 9, 2026

Your organization is executing a portfolio of projects, and you are managing a critical ERP implementation with a 18-month timeline. At month 10, the portfolio review board redirects your two most experienced technical resources to a new executive priority project for the next 90 days. These resources are currently assigned to critical path activities for database migration and integration testing. Your resource manager can provide three junior resources as replacements, but they lack ERP experience. The portfolio manager states this is non-negotiable due to business priorities. Your analysis shows that using junior resources will likely cause 6-8 weeks of schedule delay and increase risk of integration defects. What should be your PRIMARY response?

September 9, 2026

You are managing a government defense project with a fixed-price contract and strict security protocols. At the 40% completion point, a new regulation is published requiring additional cybersecurity controls that were not in the original scope. Implementing these controls will add $1.2M to project costs and 4 months to the schedule. Your contracts team confirms this qualifies as a changes in law provision under the contract. However, the government client's project office indicates their fiscal year budget cannot accommodate the increase and suggests descoping other requirements to offset costs. Your technical lead warns that descoping any current requirements will likely fail the final security certification. What is the MOST appropriate next step?

September 9, 2026

You are managing a large infrastructure project with a 24-month timeline and a $15M budget. During month 14, your Cost Performance Index (CPI) is 0.89 and Schedule Performance Index (SPI) is 0.92. The project has consumed $9.2M of the budget. Your sponsor is concerned about cost overruns and demands that you reduce spending immediately. The critical path activities for the next three months include foundation work that requires specialized equipment already procured and scheduled. What should be your PRIMARY response to the sponsor's demand?

September 9, 2026

You are leading a construction project that is 65% complete when a key subcontractor declares bankruptcy. This subcontractor was responsible for all electrical work, representing 20% of remaining project activities. Three alternative subcontractors have been identified: Vendor A can start immediately but costs 35% more; Vendor B matches the original cost but needs 45 days mobilization; Vendor C costs 15% more and needs 20 days mobilization. The electrical work is on the critical path, and contract penalties of $50,000 per week apply after the baseline completion date, which is 90 days away. Your analysis shows current electrical work would take 70 days. What is the BEST course of action?

September 9, 2026

Your pharmaceutical project is developing a new drug formulation with strict FDA validation requirements. The project is using a stage-gate approach with formal quality reviews at each phase. During the Phase 2 gate review, quality auditors identify that 12 of 47 deliverables from Phase 1 do not fully meet the documented acceptance criteria, though they passed initial reviews. Reworking these deliverables will cost $340,000 and delay the project by 6 weeks. The Phase 1 project manager, who has since left the company, approved these deliverables based on verbal agreements with stakeholders that differ from the documented requirements. What should you do FIRST?

September 9, 2026

You are managing a complex systems integration project following a predictive lifecycle. Three months before a major milestone delivery, your technical lead identifies that integrating two vendor systems will require an interface component that was not in the original design. Without this component, the systems cannot communicate, and the milestone deliverable cannot function. Analysis shows: developing the interface will cost $185K and take 8 weeks; the milestone is on the critical path; contingency reserve has $120K remaining; and both vendors claim the interface requirement was implied in the SOW but not explicitly stated. Your legal team is investigating liability. What should you prioritize as project manager?

July 8, 2026

Your construction project is in month 18 of a 30-month schedule. A new environmental regulation has been enacted that requires additional soil remediation procedures for your project site. The regulation applies retroactively to work already completed. Your legal team estimates compliance will add $1.2M in costs and 3 months to the schedule. You have management reserve of $800K and schedule reserve of 6 weeks. The contract includes a force majeure clause and regulatory change provisions. Your CFO wants to minimize financial impact, your customer is concerned about schedule, and your legal counsel advises documenting everything for potential claims. What is your best course of action as the project manager?

July 8, 2026

You are managing a government defense project with strict predictive controls and a fixed-price contract. During the testing phase, quality inspections reveal that 18% of manufactured units fail to meet specification tolerances defined in the quality management plan. Investigation shows the root cause is a calibration drift in manufacturing equipment that began gradually six weeks ago. The cost of rework is $340,000, and recalibrating will halt production for one week, impacting the critical path. Your quality manager wants to adjust acceptance criteria to pass more units, your operations manager wants to continue production and rework later, and your sponsor wants to understand the control implications. What should you do first?

July 8, 2026

Your pharmaceutical project is developing a new drug delivery system using a predictive approach. During the design phase, a critical supplier notifies you that a key component's lead time has increased from 8 weeks to 20 weeks due to raw material shortages. This component is needed for three activities on the critical path and two on a near-critical path (total float of 5 days). The project is currently on schedule, and regulatory submission deadlines are contractually fixed. Your team proposes four risk response strategies. Which response best addresses this threat while maintaining predictive project controls?

July 8, 2026

You are managing a complex infrastructure project with a 24-month timeline and a $15M budget. During month 14, earned value analysis shows: PV = $8.5M, EV = $7.2M, AC = $8.1M. The project has experienced significant scope changes, and three critical path activities are behind schedule. Your sponsor asks for a realistic forecast of final project cost and wants to understand if the current cost performance will continue. Considering the CPI trend has been declining over the past four months from 0.92 to 0.89, what is the most appropriate estimate at completion (EAC) to present?

July 8, 2026

You are managing a complex engineering project with 47 identified risks in your risk register. During a risk audit, your PMO director challenges your risk response strategy for Risk #23, which has a probability of 35% and an impact of $180,000 if it occurs. You have allocated $45,000 from the contingency reserve to implement a mitigation strategy that will reduce the probability to 15% and the impact to $120,000. The mitigation work will take 3 weeks and consume resources from the critical path. The PMO director argues that this mitigation strategy is not cost-effective. What is the most valid justification for your mitigation approach?

June 12, 2026

You are managing a software implementation project for a financial services client using a predictive approach with a detailed WBS and network diagram. During the planning phase, you identified a critical dependency: the data migration activity (Activity M, 15 days duration) cannot start until both the database configuration (Activity D, 10 days) and the data cleansing validation (Activity V, 12 days) are complete. Activities D and V can occur in parallel and both start after user requirements approval (Activity R, 8 days). Activity M is followed by user acceptance testing (Activity T, 20 days). If Activity R starts on Day 1, what is the earliest day that user acceptance testing can be completed, and what type of dependency exists between Activities D and V relative to Activity M?

June 12, 2026

You are managing a government defense project operating under a Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) contract with a target cost of $8 million and a fixed fee of $800,000. At the 60% completion point, you discover that a subcontractor has been misclassifying certain labor costs as direct project costs when they should have been indirect overhead costs. The misclassification has inflated your actual costs by $400,000. The client's auditor has identified this issue and is demanding corrective action. The contract includes a clause limiting reimbursable costs to 115% of target cost. What is your most appropriate immediate action as project manager?

June 12, 2026

During the execution phase of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility construction project, a critical piece of specialized equipment arrives on-site three weeks late due to supply chain issues. The equipment installation is on the critical path and has zero float. Your project team has identified four potential corrective actions, each with different implications. The original schedule shows the equipment installation taking 4 weeks with 2 weeks of successor activities before the facility handover. What corrective action should you implement first to minimize overall project impact?

June 12, 2026

You are managing a large infrastructure project with a 24-month timeline and a fixed budget of $15 million. At the end of month 12, you conduct an earned value analysis and find: PV = $7.5M, EV = $6.8M, AC = $7.9M. The sponsor is concerned about cost overruns and asks whether the project can be completed within the original budget. Your team estimates that current performance trends will continue. What is the most accurate estimate at completion (EAC) you should report to the sponsor?

June 12, 2026