PMP® Exam Questions - The Complete Guide

Practice makes perfect. If you were a baseball player, you don’t want to be up at the bat only to strike out. You may practice against a teammate to improve your swing, but ultimately, there is no real substitute for playing a real game. When you play a competitive sport, after all your hard work in preparing and training, you want to win. It is the same with the Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam. A PMP® credential is an important one to advance in your career. On the day of the PMP® exam, when you are at the PMP exam center, you want to pass!

To ensure your success, you need to know the PMP^® Examination Content Outline (ECO), project management best practices described in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) and and other PMI reference materials, and, most importantly, take as many PMP practice exams as possible. In this article, I describe the most common types of PMP questions, provide you with sample PMP questions and give you links to where you can get more free PMP exam questions.

Read this article and find out more about how PMP sample questions can help you pass your PMP exam.

PMP Exam Question Format and Types

The PMP exam is composed of 180 mostly multiple-choice questions (more about the different question formats in a second), which are distributed throughout the three ECO domains: People, Process, and Business Environment. Additionally, as the ECO states, "About half of the examination will represent predictive project management approaches and the other half will represent agile or hybrid approaches." A test taker is allotted 230 minutes to complete the exam (with two 10-minute optional breaks after answering the 60-th and the 120-th question).

To prepare for the PMP exam, you should familiarize yourself with different PMP exam question formats and types. A typical PMP exam question contains 4 choices, of which there is only one correct or best answer. Other question formats include multiple response, drag-and-drop, fill-in-the-blank, and hotspot. A multiple-response question may have more than 4 answer choices, and more than one choice being the correct answer. Drag-and-drop questions require a test-taker to match pairs. To answer the fill-in-the-blank question, the test taker has to select the answer choice that, as the name implies, best fills the blank spot in the scenario. And finally, a hotspot question is typically an image where the test taker should click the spot representing the correct answer. But don't worry - our PMP Exam Simulator has them all!

In this article, I describe the most common types of PMP questions. These are the situational (or scenario-based), knowledge-based, interpretational, and formula-based questions. For each type, I also provide a sample question. For each sample PMP exam question, I include a hint, the correct question and an explanation. Note that on an actual PMP exam, there is no hint and (obviously!) no correct answer or explanation.

Therefore, I urge you to use this knowledge of the PMP exam question types in order to be more proactive in your PMP exam preparation. When you study the PMBOK® Guide or other PMI reference materials, ask yourself. “How can I be tested on this topic in the PMP exam?”

Situational or Scenario-Based PMP Exam Questions

Most questions on the PMP exam are situational or scenario-based. These questions test your ability to apply theoretical expertise to real-life project management situations. These questions may be short (one or two sentences) or could be long-winded (a whole paragraph). The idea behind longer questions is that in real life, you are often provided with both relevant and irrelevant information. Your task is to identify what is important, ignore what does not matter, and then act upon the real issues. Be sure to read and accurately understand what is asked in a PMP exam question.

A single word can be critical, such as NOT or EXCEPT or ONLY or ALWAYS, which can change the meaning of the question or an answer choice.

Often, situational questions will have two choices, which may appear to be reasonably correct. Therefore, it is vital that you identify what the question is actually asking. Based on the question and your knowledge of project management concepts, you must find the BEST answer. It will not always be the ideal/perfect answer you would prefer to see as the correct choice. Sometimes you will have to eliminate the worst three choices and stay with a bad one, but it should be BETTER than the others, the lesser of four evils if you wish. Other times, all four choices may seem correct, so, again, you would have to select the one that is better than the others.

A final tip on the situational PMP questions, try not to overthink the situation. A real-life situation may have a multitude of factors and considerations that cannot be represented in a single exam question. Try not to think of too many “what if”, “what about” scenarios or fixate that “this would never happen in the real world.” Remember that a situational question aims to test how you apply the theoretical knowledge. Focus on answering the question with the given information, your project management experience, and knowledge gained during the exam preparation.

And if you want to practice the most difficult PMP exam questions that the vast majority of students get wrong, check out our best-selling book, The 50 PMP Exam Prep Questions Everyone Gets Wrong.

Knowledge-Based PMP Exam Questions

The number of knowledge-based questions on the PMP exam is relatively low, and answering them may not be that difficult if you know or remember the project management concepts outlined in the PMBOK® Guide. These questions may be based on your knowledge of the project management principles, project performance domains, processes, or, in some cases (although rare), the inputs, outputs, tools and techniques, also known as ITTOs.

Watch this Video with a Knowledge-Based Sample PMP Exam Question

Click the image below to watch a video where we review a knowledge-based PMP question. It discusses the topic of cognitive bias. In the video you first see the question, then you have 30 seconds to find the correct answer, and then we reveal the solution and explain the correct answer:

Students both love and hate these knowledge based PMP exam questions. Some students like these questions because if you study the PMBOK® Guide well, you should be able to handle the majority of these knowledge-based questions easily. Students who lack preparation do not like this type of questions, since they can easily be confused by unfamiliar terminology. You also have to watch out for questions that are not directly covered in the PMBOK® Guide.

Interpretational PMP Exam Questions

Interpretational questions test your ability to deduce a situation or condition from the description of a status or problem. So for example, in a PMP exam question, you may be provided a graph or performance metric, where you have to be able to determine if a good, bad or neutral/indifferent interpretation applies.

Formula-based questions (described later in this article) could also be interpretational rather than computational. For example, "The project CPI is 0.87. What does it mean for the project?"

A good place to start is Table 7-1. Earned Value Calculations Summary Table on page 267 of the PMBOK® Guide, Sixth Edition. Yes, this Edition is still relevant, and you can access it online, using the new PMI digital platform PMIstandards+^TM. In addition to mastering formulas and how they are used, focus on the last column of the table, called "Interpretation of Result" as it will help you answer formula-based interpretational PMP exam questions.

Technique-Based PMP Exam Questions

According to the PMBOK® Guide, a technique is "a defined systematic procedure employed by a human resource to perform an activity to produce a product or result or deliver a service, and that may employ one or more tools."

Almost every project management process or performance domain in the PMBOK® Guide has corresponding tools and techniques. Therefore, you will likely encounter a question on your PMP exam that tests your understanding of a specific tool or technique. It may be a knowledge-based question where you can demonstrate your understanding of what a tool/technique is used for, an application-based question testing your skills of how the tool/technique is utilized, or an interpretational question that describes a situation and requires you to identify the tool/technique implied by the scenario.

Our best advice is to go through the sections of the PMBOK® Guide that describe the various tools, techniques, models, methods, and artifacts and understand each one of them, its purpose, and how it is applied. Some are easier to grasp. For example, brainstorming is familiar and intuitive, and most students probably have used this technique on their projects. However, understanding the Stacey Complexity Model used to determine the relative complexity of a project requires more study and practice.

Formula-Based PMP Exam Questions

Based on feedback from our students, there are very few formula-based questions on the PMP exam, and even those are relatively easy, mainly requiring you to perform a simple calculation or interpret its result. But do you want to risk it and skip studying formulas? After all, scoring a few more points by correctly answering these questions is what can help you pass your PMP exam.

Therefore, knowing PMP exam formulas backward and forwards and understanding each element of the formulas would give you critical decision-making criteria to know how to apply them and interpret their results. A good grasp of the formulas also may help you more easily eliminate answer choices that clearly cannot be correct based on your understanding of the formulas.

There is really only one way to prepare yourself for formula-based questions on the exam: You have to study and practice all the formulas. And so you must know nearly fifty formulas, twenty important values and close to thirty formula-related acronyms. You have to be able to apply the formulas to a project scenario, and if I give you the result of a formula, then you must be able to interpret what that figure means for your project.

But here is the good news... Formula-based questions only have one correct answer. Those PMP exam questions that ask you to select "the best" action or "the next" action often have two or even three answers that seem possible. Not so with the formula questions. Once you know your formulas and understand how to correctly apply them in a given situation, then there is only one correct answer. Because 1 + 1 = 2. Period.

To practice more formula-based questions and go above and beyond in your PMP exam preparation, check out our new book called The PMP Exam Formula Study Guide. It contains 160 computational and interpretational questions. The book is not just a collection of questions; it is a comprehensive guide that will teach you tips and tricks of answering formula-based questions on your PMP exam. The 160 questions are exclusive to the book and not part of the exam simulator. The book is fully updated for the current exam, with a special focus on the interpretational questions to make sure you learn what you need to pass.

My Top 10 Recommended Web Sites for Free PMP Exam Questions

I have done my own research on free PMP exam sample questions. I can tell you, that there are many free resources readily available that can help you get you started. I have narrowed it down to a list of 10 that I recommend.

You can see that apart from the link, I have tried to give you an idea of how many questions are available and key features of each website. You can see for yourself that the websites differ in terms of the number of questions that they offer as well the level of sophistication in presenting students the free PMP exam sample questions. Some providers list all the free PMP exam sample questions at once; others deliver only a question a day. You may receive an email with the PMP questions, or you may have to register to answer PMP exam sample questions in a PMP exam simulator environment.

The Next Step for PMP Certification Exam Prep

Find even more free resources and important information on how to prepare for the PMP exam on the free section of the PM PrepCast website. I encourage students to try to answer as many practice exams under real exam conditions. In other words, do not refer to your notes or the PMBOK® Guide, take a full exam within the time limit.

Learn More about PMP Exam Questions

Conclusion and Recommendation

As I said, practice makes perfect. Free PMP exam questions and knowing what type of questions to expect on the exam are great for starters. However, in order to better prepare for your PMP exam, you want to practice your exam realistically. After all, you don't practice for your driving test in a bumper car. No. You drive a real car out on the streets to gain driving experience.

And so the best way to prepare for your PMP exam is to practice with a real PMP Exam Simulator.

By using a PMP Exam Simulator you will be better and better prepared for your exam: You learn what it feels like to take a complete, 180-question, almost a 4-hour long exam. You get to apply your knowledge and experience to hundreds of simulated exam questions. And, if you answer a question incorrectly, you can see why you got it wrong and will learn from the mistake. A simulator is a must-have.

Will any simulator do? Probably.

Most simulators that you will find in the current market are of a good quality. But of course, I am biased and I prefer my own PMP Exam Simulator. It offers 2,070+ high-quality questions with detailed explanations and references alongside every answer (correct and incorrect!), so you can understand why your answer is or is not correct. But don't just believe me -- instead read PMP Exam Simulator Reviews from our former students. Remember you can always try the free version first. No strings attached.

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