PSP Qts
PSP Qts
PSP Paper - 1
P.1 Which of the following is generally the MOST correct use of a project network diagram?
A. Showing the project schedule
B. Documenting task interdependencies
C. Defining project resources
D. Defining the project costs
P.3 The calculated duration for a project is 28.166. The standard deviation is 5.5. What
technique would you use to compute the probability of completing a project on a specific day?
A. PERT formula
B. Monte Carlo simulation
C. Probability analysis
D. Variance analysis
P.5 During planning you discover that the time needed to complete the project is longer than the
time available. What do you do?
A. Tell the customer that the required date cannot be met
B. Tell management that the required date cannot be met
C. Spend time determining what work can be done for the length of time available and
accomplish only that work
D. Determine options for crashing and/or fast tracking the project and present management with
your recommended option
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being analyzed
D difference between the early finish dates and late finish dates of an activity
P.8 Every activity in a schedule, except the first and last activity, should have
A. at least one constraint
B. a milestone activity as a predecessor
C. at least one predecessor and at least one successor
D. a milestone activity as a successor
P.9 A project manager has increased project costs by US $100,000, but completed the project
four weeks earlier than planned. What tool is BEST described here?
A. Resource leveling
B. Duration compression
C. Crashing
D. Fast tracking
P.11 Dummy activities are NOT used on which type of network diagram?
A. CPM
B. Detailed
C. PDM
D. PERT
P.12 Which of the following is NOT required when performing weekly or monthly schedule
updates?
A. actual frnish of activities
B. original duration of activities
C. percent complete
D. Remaining duration of activities
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P.13 During the creation of a project plan, you want to find the critical path of the project.
Which of the following project management tools would you use to determine the critical path?
A. Work breakdown structure
B. Network diagram
C. Project control plan
D. Critical Resource Histograms
P.14 All of the following describe the critical path of a schedule except:
A. Determined by network logic and is the chain of activities that controls the overall project
completion time
B. The series of activities having the least amount of total float
C. Frequently defined as the shortest path through the schedule
D. Changed by redefining the network logic or changing activity durations or both
P.15 How many types of relationships between activities can be found on a precedence
diagram?
A. 4
B. 3
C. Multiple
D. 2
E 18 Hammock activities in a schedule include all of the following except that they
A. are included in the forward and backward pass calculations
B. depict a start-to-finish relationship between a sequence of activities in the same path
C. measure the elapsed time between start and completion of a sequence of activities
D. may be separated by any number of activities or events in the logic path
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P.19 A project manager is involved in the ABC project. Time lines have slipped for project
ABC and he feels there could have been a mistake in the initial time estimate of this project. The
following are assumptions that he made when doing the initial schedule using the critical path
method (CPM). Which one is incorrect?
A. He estimated each task with a single time estimate.
B. The CPM can have no dummies.
C. The CPM uses only an activity-on-arrow (AOA) diagram.
D. The CPM helps to emphasize cost control and schedule flexibility.
P.20 Which of the following is NOT required while initially planning a project?
A. A schedule that identifies all the tasks required on the project
B. The duration of each task
C. Resource identification and leveling
D. Logical relationships between the tasks
P.21 Project schedules help control all of the following except for
A. time
B. cost
C. resources
D. quality
P.22 During the planning phase, Task G was estimated to take five days. Task G is on the
critical path. On day two, it became clear that Task G would take 15 days, which will impact the
imposed project end date. The project team meets to perform root cause analysis to identify the
cause of the variance and to plan schedule recovery with activities performed later in the
schedule. What should be the output of this meeting?
A. Corrective action
B. WBS updates
C. Activity list updates
D. Schedule updates
P.23 The calculation of the latest finish time and latest start time for all incomplete network
activities or late time for events in the ADM and PDM scheduling methods is referred to as
______
A. a backward pass
B. a forward pass
C. the remaining duration
D. just-in-time scheduling
P.24 Which of the following are GENERALLY illustrated better by bar charts than network
diagrams?
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A. Logical relationships
B. Critical paths
C. Resource trade-off
D. Progress or status
P.25 In an earned value-based system, a schedule performance index of less than one for the
project indicates the project is ____________
A. ahead of schedule
B. behind schedule
C. over budget
D. under budget
P.26 You evaluate your critical path and determine the project will be completed two weeks
ahead of management's expected due date. What should you do?
A. Delay the project for two weeks
B. Prepare a list of risks that did not occur
C. Pull resources off the critical path to work on non-critical path tasks
D. Increase the scope that will enhance the project and consume two more weeks to complete
P.27 An earned value-based project control system can use either of which two budgets as the
basis of its calculations?
A. direct or indirect cost
B. earned or budgeted cost yearly
C. labor hours or dollars
D. linear feet or dollars
P.28 While evaluating the Gantt chart, the project manager determines that the project is behind
schedule. What should she do?
A. Obtain approval from the customer to slip the project
B. Report findings to management
C. Evaluate the alternatives with the team
D. Evaluate the alternatives with the customer
P.29 If the optimistic estimate is one, the pessimistic estimate is nine, and the most likely
estimate is eight, what is the PERT estimate?
A. 9
B. 7
C. 8
D. 3
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P.30 In terms of reporting progress to management, a schedule that is organized based on the
project’s work breakdown structure is useful because __________
A. the schedule can be converted from arrow diagramming method to precedence diagramming
method
B. the schedule can be manipulated to hide negative aspects
C. the schedule can be summarized to intermediate levels of detail
D. the schedule can only be “crashed” if organized by work breakdown structure
P.31 The project manager has a project that is three months behind but, surprisingly, markedly
under budget. She has decided to try to make up time, but wants to avoid rework. What should
she do?
A. Crash
B. Fast Track
C. Redefine the scope
D. Resource level
P.32 A total float value less than zero on a schedule activity indicates that the
A. activity is being impacted by an imposed schedule constraint
B. activity is not on the critical path
C. activity is either completed or ahead of schedule
D. schedule variance is favorable
P.33 During schedule development, which of the following would BEST provide the basis for
the most likely activity duration estimate?
A. Labor productivity rates published by a professional association
B. A consultant's estimate of the overall labor man-hours required
C. The initial estimate used to budget the project
D. The schedule for a similar project at the same facility completed two years earlier
P.34 Total float is defined as the amount of time an activity can be delayed without impacting
_______
A. the next activity
B. the end date of that activity
C. the overall project completion
D. the buoyancy of a successor activity
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P.36 When creating a baseline project schedule, the ideal outcome is ___________
A. more than 10 days of positive total float on the longest path
B. less than 10 days and more than 1 day of positive total float on the longest path
C. a zero total float value on the longest path
D. less than 10 days of negative total float on the longest path
P.37 A project manager received executive orders to deliver the project two weeks earlier than
scheduled doing whatever it takes. He decided the least costly means would be to add resources
to critical path tasks in order to shorten the time of those tasks. In this case, the project manager
has:
A. Fast tracked the critical path part of project schedule.
B. Decomposed the critical path WBS.
C. Leveled resources.
D. Crashed the critical path.
P.39 You are managing the project when you discover an estimated completion date will occur
after the desired date. What should you do FIRST?
A. Add resources to the project
B. Evaluate the possibility of doing more tasks in parallel
C. Negotiate for more time
D. Explain to the customer that the project cannot be done on time
P.41 Which of the following BEST describes comparing actual dates with planned dates?
A. Schedule definition
B. Resource leveling
C. Variance analysis
D. PERT
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P.42 A project plan results in a project schedule that is too long. If the project network diagram
cannot change but you have extra personnel resources, what should you do?
A. Fast track the project
B. Level the resources
C. Crash the project
D. Perform a value analysis
P.43 Resource planning must take all of the following into account except for
A. earned value techniques established for the project
B. types of materials, equipment and labor skills required to complete the project
C. cash flow (expenditure) limitations for completing work on the project
D. time available to complete the project
P.44 After analyzing the status of your project, you determine that the earned value is lower than
the planned value. What should you expect as an outcome if this trend continues?
A. The actual cost will be lower than planned.
B. The estimate at completion will be lower than planned.
C. The project will finish behind schedule.
D. The project will finish below the original cost estimate.
P.46 The sponsor wants the project completed in 40 days. The CPI is 1.1, the project critical
path duration is 38 days with a standard deviation of two days. What is the maximum project
float?
A. Zero days
B. Two days.
C. Four days
D. Six days
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P.48 A project manager obtains weighted average duration estimates from the team to calculate
activity duration. Which type of mathematical analysis is he using?
A. Monte Carlo
B. GERT
C. CPM
D. PERT
P.49 What is the primary difference between the arrow diagramming method (ADM) and
precedence diagramming method (PDM)?
A. ADM uses arrows, while PDM uses boxes
B. ADM is manual CPM calculations, while PDM is computerized
C. PDM is a bar chart with network logic, while ADM is a pure logic network
D. ADM is limited to finish-to-start logic relationships, while PDM is not
P.51 A task needs more time and the project manager determines that there is enough reserve to
accommodate the change. Who needs to approve the change?
A. Management
B. Project manager
C. Team member
D. Functional manager
P.52 The “baseline” plan is usually initially reviewed and approved by the
A. contractor
B. subcontractors
C. owner/employer
D. permitting authority
P.53 You have a project with the following tasks: Task A takes 40 hours and can start after the
project starts. Task B takes 25 hours and should happen after the project starts. Task C must
happen after Task A and takes 35 hours. Task D must happen after Tasks B and C and takes 30
hours. Task E must take place after Task C and takes 10 hours. Task F takes place after Task E
and takes 22 hours. Which of the following is TRUE if Task B actually takes 37 hours?
A. The critical path is 67 hours.
B. The critical path changes to tasks B, D.
C. The critical path is A, C, E, F.
D. The critical path increases by 12 hours.
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P.55 If project time and cost are not as important as the number of resources used each month,
which of the following is the BEST course of action?
A. Perform a Monte Carlo analysis
B. Fast track the project
C. Perform resource leveling
D. Analyze the life-cycle costs
P.56 A project deadline has been imposed for the end of the year. The project consists of two
tasks. Task A has a duration of two months and task B has a duration of three months. Tasks A
and B can be performed concurrently. The start date for the project is set for the beginning of
July. What is the total duration for the critical path?
A. Two months
B. Three months
C. Five months
D. Six months
P.57 A task has an early start of day 3, a late start of day 13, an early finish of day 9, and a late
finish of day 19. The task:
A. Is on the critical path.
B. Has a lag.
C. Is ahead of schedule.
D. Is not on the critical path.
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P.60 What is the BEST method of estimating the time for a task that has never been done by
your company before?
A. CPM
B. PERT
C. Monte Carlo analysis
D. Activity definition
P.62 According to your project network diagram, the critical path for the project is six weeks.
One week into the project, the project sponsor informs you that the executive steering committee
has moved the project's finish date to two weeks sooner than your published finish date.
Assuming you are on schedule, what is the project slack?
A. Two weeks
B. Four weeks
C. Minus four weeks
D. Minus two weeks
P.63 When resource leveling craft labor for a critical path schedule, the scheduler ___________
A. can depend on the results of the resource leveling operation to reflect a useful realignment of
all schedule activities.
B. must consider breaks in continuity of work for the craft labor, thereby possibly reducing any
additional mobilization and demobilization costs
C. need not consider its effects, as it is a theoretical concept with limited application to
construction projects
D. need to consider the craft labor to compare the requirement pattern to request additional
deployment.
P.65 Free slack is the amount of time a task can be delayed without delaying the:
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A. Project.
B. Completion date required by the customer.
C. Early start of its successor.
D. Project completion date.
P.66 A task has an early start of day three, a late start of day 13, an early finish of day nine, and
a late finish of day 19. What is the duration of this task?
A. 3
B. 6
C. 7
D. 10
P.67 Which best describes the following: A master schedule is composed of five different,
logically tied subproject schedules. How many different critical paths can be found?
A. at least one
B. at most two
C. at least six
D. at least five
P.68 A project has three critical paths. How does this affect the project?
A. It makes it easier to manage.
B. It increases the project risk.
C. It requires more people.
D. It makes it more expensive.
P.69 Which of the following will NOT affect the total float calculation?
A. multiple calendars
B. start and finish constraints
C. front end loading
D. preferential logic
P.70 Which of the following is the BEST tool for showing the team the project schedule status
during project execution?
A. Milestone chart
B. Gantt chart
C. Work breakdown structure
D. Network diagram
P.71 You are a project manager for a new product development project that has four levels in the
work breakdown structure, and has been sequenced using the arrow diagramming technique. The
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activity duration estimates have been received. What time management activity would you do
NEXT?
A. Create an activity list
B. Update the work breakdown structure
C. Collect historical records
D. Duration compression
P.72 In a graphical earned value analysis, what time-scaled value is the indicator that is used to
represent both schedule and cost performance?
A. Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled
B. Actual Cost of Work Scheduled
C. Budgeted Cost of Work Performed
D. Schedule Performance Index
P.73 During project execution, the forecast remaining hours begin to exceed planned remaining
hours. Consequently, the project takes on a negative variance. Which analysis method is the
project manager likely to use as a measurement tool to validate this information?
A. EV-PV
B. EV/AC
C. EV/PV
D. EV-AC
P.75 Which of the following is NOT an element of the project planning process?
A. earned value analysis
B. resource budgeting
C. cost budgeting
D. schedule development
P.76 A project has seven activities: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. A, B, and D can start anytime. A
takes three weeks, B takes five weeks, and D takes 11 weeks. A and B must be completed before
C can start. C takes six weeks. B, C, and D must be completed before E can start. E takes two
weeks. F can start as soon as C is completed and requires four weeks. E must be completed
before G can start. G takes three weeks. F and G must be completed for the project to be
completed. What activities have slack available?
A. Activity A has two weeks slack, and activity F has one week.
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P.78 To control the schedule, a project manager is re-analyzing the project to predict project
duration. She does this by analyzing the sequence of activities with the least amount of
scheduling flexibility. What technique is she using?
A. Critical path
B. Flow chart
C. Precedence diagramming
D. Work breakdown structure
P.79 If after calculating a schedule an activity exhibits negative total float, which of the
following is certain. The activity _________
A. was completed in the past
B. has yet to be completed
C. is on the critical path
D. is a milestone
P.80 What is the BEST report to use when reporting to senior management?
A. Gantt chart
B. Milestone chart
C. Project plan
D. Network diagram
P.81 Which of the following BEST describes the primary use of project management software?
A. Managing a project
B. Creating and controlling a schedule
C. Creating a complete project plan
D. Creating a work breakdown structure
P.82 A team member from research and development tells you that her work is too creative to
provide you with a fixed single estimate for the task. You both decide to use the average time
the task has taken for past projects to predict the future. This is an example of which of the
following?
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A. Parametric estimating
B. PERT
C. CPM
D. Monte Carlo
P.83 Which of the following will always describe the critical path? The path with
A. negative float
B. zero float
C. the longest duration
D. the shortest duration and negative float
P.84 A project manager for a small construction company has a project that was budgeted for
US $130,000 over a six week period. According to her schedule, the project should have cost
US $60,000 to date. However, it has cost US $90,000 to date. The project is also behind
schedule, because the original estimates were not accurate. Who has the primarily responsibility
to solve this problem?
A. Project manager
B. Senior management
C. Project sponsor / Owner
D. Project Management Consultant
P.85 You are looking at the standard reports that the project office has supplied, and you see
network diagrams and Gantt charts. Under what circumstances would you want to use a network
diagram instead of a Gantt chart?
A. To track progress or to report to the team
B. To create a work breakdown structure
C. To show interdependencies between tasks
D. To report to senior management
P.87 Which estimating method uses one time estimate for each task?
A. PERT
B. CPM
C. Monte Carlo
D. Control charts
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P.88 A task has an early start of day three, a late start of day 13, an early finish of day nine, and
a late finish of day 19. What is the task's float?
A. 10
B. 6
C. 3
D. Can not be determined
P.89 In its simplest form, what is the main drawback of critical path method scheduling?
A. It doesn’t account for interdependency between activities.
B. It assumes that resources are unlimited.
C. It allows for Precedence Diagramming Method to be used in place of Arrow Diagramming
Method.
D. It requires a backward pass to calculate late dates.
P.90 You are a project manager for a small construction project. Your project was budgeted for
US $72,000 over a six-week period. As of today, you've spent US $22,000 of your budget to
complete work that you originally expected to cost US $24,000. According to your schedule,
you should have spent US $30,000 by this point. Based on these circumstances, your project
could be BEST described as:
A. Ahead of schedule.
B. Behind schedule.
C. On schedule.
D. Having not enough information provided.
P.92 The characteristic of the precedence diagramming method that models construction projects
differently than the arrow diagramming method is that it __________
A. uses arrows to signify logic in a network
B. can be used to calculate the late start and late finish of all activities
C. allows multiple relationship types to be associated with activities
D. allows more than one critical path to be represented
P.93 A project has seven activities: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Activities A, B, and D can start
anytime. A takes three weeks, B takes five weeks, and D takes 11 weeks. A and B must be
completed before C can start. C requires six weeks to complete. B, C, and D must be completed
before E can start. E requires two weeks. F takes four weeks and can start as soon as C is
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completed. E must be completed before G starts. G requires three weeks. F and G must be
completed for the project to be completed. What is the critical path?
A. A, C, F
B. B, C, E and G
C. D, E and G
D. Both B, C, E, G and D, E, G.
P.94 If the optimistic estimate for a task is 12 days and the pessimistic estimate is 18 days, what
is the standard deviation of the task?
A. 1
B. 1.3
C. 6
D. 3
P.96 You have a project with four tasks as follows: Task 1 can start immediately and has an
estimated duration of one. Task 2 can start after task 1 is completed and has an estimated
duration of four. Task 3 can start after Task 2 is completed and has an estimated duration of
five. Task 4 can start after Task 1 is completed and must be completed when Task 3 is
completed. The estimate for Task 4 is ten. What is the shortest amount of time in which the
project can be completed?
A. 10
B. 9
C. 18
D. 11
P.97 Which of the following does NOT need to be done if there is a major delay on a non-critical
path activity?
A. Investigate the delay
B. Reevaluate which path is critical
C. Change the project schedule
D. Review slack time for the task
P.98 If the optimistic estimate for a task is 12 days and the pessimistic estimate is 18 days, what
is the most likely estimate?
A. 15 days
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B. 13 days
C. 16 days
D. Unknown, the most likely estimate is a separate estimate
P.99 The sponsor of the project you are managing asks you to compress the duration of the
project. Which of the following is correct?
A. Crashing always shortens the time line but often increases risk.
B. Fast tracking often results in rework, and crashing often results in increased cost.
C. Crashing is only a viable alternative if earned value analysis indicates that the project is
ahead of schedule and under budget.
D. Fast tracking will result in less parallel tasks than crashing the project.
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Correct Answers
P.1 – B
P.2 – D
P.3 - B
P.4 - B
P.5 - D
P.6 - B
P.7 - C
P.8. - C
P.9. - B
P.10. - D
P.11. - C
P.12 - B
P.13 – B
P.14 – C
P.15. – A
P.16. – C
P.17. – A
P.18. – C
P.19. – B
P.20. – C
P.21. – D
P.22 – A
P.23 – A
P.24. – D
P.25 – B
P.26. – B
P.27 – C
P.28. – C
P.29 – B
P.30 – C
P.31 – A
P.32. – A
P.33 – D
P.34. – C
P.35. – C
P.36 – C
P.37. –D
P.38. –C
P.39. –B
P.40. – D
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P.41. –C
P.42. –C
P.43. –A
P.44. –C
P.45. –B
P.46. –C
P.47. –A
P.48. –D
P.49. –D
P.50. –D
P.51. –B
P.52. –C
P.53. –C
P.54. –A
P.55. –C
P.56. –D
P.57. –D
P.58. –A
P.59 –C
P.60. –B
P.61. –B
P.62. –D
P.63. –B
P.64. –D
P.65. –C
P.66. –C
P.67. –A
P.68. –B
P.69. –C
P.70. –B
P.71. –D
P.72. –C
P.73 –A
P.74. –D
P.75. –A
P.76 –A
P.77. –C
P.78. –A
P.79. –B
P.80. –B
P.81. –B
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P.82. –A
P.83. –C
P.84. –A
P.85. –C
P.86. –D
P.87. –B
P.88. –A
P.89. –B
P.90. –B
P.91. –A
P.92. –C
P.93. –D
P.94. –A
P.95. –A
P.96. –D
P.97. –C
P.98. –D
P.99. –B
P.100. –A
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