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Ten situational questions on process groups, earned value and agile roles — and why each answer is right.
Below are ten CAPM practice questions covering process groups, earned value management and agile roles, each with an explanation. They are written in the same situational style as the real exam, where more than one answer sounds technically correct and what is really being tested is recognition rather than recall. PMI builds questions around a project scenario and then asks what should happen next, which document applies, or which technique fits. The wrong answers are usually real project management concepts, just the wrong one for that moment.
One. A project team is turning the project charter into more detailed plans, including a schedule, budget and risk register. Which process group is the project in: initiating, planning, executing, or monitoring and controlling? The answer is planning. Planning is where the charter's high-level scope becomes the detailed subsidiary plans. Initiating produces the charter itself, and executing is where those plans get carried out rather than written.
Two. A project has a planned value of 50,000 dollars, an earned value of 45,000 dollars and an actual cost of 55,000 dollars. What is the cost variance? The answer is negative 10,000 dollars. Cost variance is earned value minus actual cost, so 45,000 minus 55,000. A negative figure means the project is over budget for the work completed. Formula questions are the most common place candidates lose avoidable points, so know cost variance, schedule variance, cost performance index and schedule performance index cold.
Three. During a sprint review, who is primarily responsible for accepting or rejecting the completed work: the scrum master, the project sponsor, the product owner, or the development team? The answer is the product owner, who owns the backlog and decides whether delivered increments meet the definition of done. The scrum master facilitates the process, and the development team builds the work but does not sign off on it.
Four. A stakeholder requests a scope change after the scope baseline has been approved. What should the team do first? The answer is to submit the change through integrated change control. Once a baseline is set, changes route through that process regardless of who is asking or how reasonable the request sounds. The question is really testing whether you understand that process discipline applies to everyone, not only to difficult stakeholders.
Five. Which document defines the formal criteria used to close or cancel a project or phase? The answer is the project management plan, which is developed and updated throughout the project to guide how work is executed, monitored and formally closed. The nearest distractor is the project charter, which authorises the project and states high-level success criteria at the start, but it is not updated as the project progresses and does not carry the detailed closure procedures the team actually follows.
Six. A risk with low probability but very high impact is identified during planning. What is the most appropriate next step? The answer is to add it to the risk register and assess it further in qualitative or quantitative analysis. Every identified risk goes into the register and gets assessed. Jumping straight to a contingency reserve, or escalating for project cancellation, skips the analysis that would tell you whether either response is warranted.
Seven. In a predictive project, when is the budget typically finalised? The answer is during planning, because the cost baseline is a planning process group output. Initiating gives you a rough order-of-magnitude estimate at best; the detailed, approved budget comes out of planning.
Eight. What is the primary purpose of a retrospective? The answer is to review team performance and identify process improvements for future iterations. Retrospectives are about how the team works, not about the deliverables themselves, which is what the sprint review covers, and not about grooming the backlog.
Nine. A project manager notices actual costs are tracking below planned value, but earned value is also below plan. What does this most likely indicate? The answer is that the project is behind schedule, and the cost data alone does not tell you why. Low earned value relative to planned value signals schedule slippage regardless of what actual cost is doing. Cost and schedule performance have to be read together.
Ten. What best distinguishes a program from a project? The answer is that a program is a group of related projects managed together to achieve benefits not available from managing them individually. The words doing the work there are related and benefits not available individually. Size and budget are not the defining criteria.
If you got seven or more of those right without looking anything up, you are closer to exam-ready than most candidates, though ten questions is a sample rather than a diagnostic. If you missed the earned value, change control or agile roles question, those are the three places CAPM candidates lose the most points and each is worth a dedicated pass. For process groups and formulas specifically, flashcards beat rereading the guide, because they force retrieval instead of recognition.
The real exam draws from a much larger pool across the full exam content outline, and the only way to build the pattern recognition it tests is repeated exposure to situational questions across every domain, not just the ones you already feel confident about. CoStudy's CAPM question bank gives you the first 10 questions free with no signup, which is enough to see whether the format matches how you study.
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