Free CAPM study guide and exam blueprint. 150 questions in 180 minutes. Written from PMI's ECO 2023, last checked 19 July 2026. Domain weightings, glossary, and practice questions with worked explanations.
Written from PMI's ECO 2023. Last checked against that document on 19 July 2026.
150 questions180 minutes4 domains
Orientation
The associate exam.
CAPM is the entry-level PMI certification, and the trap is treating it like a smaller PMP. It is not. It tests whether you know the vocabulary and the mechanics across four approaches, predictive, adaptive, and business analysis, at the recall level, not whether you can make a project manager's judgment call.
Why this credential pays for itself
An active CAPM holder gets the 35-hour PMP training requirement waived. PMI's own 2026 PMP outline states that holding an active CAPM earns a 35-training-hour credit. If PMP is anywhere in your future, CAPM is the cheapest way to clear one of its eligibility hurdles, and it stays valid while you gain the experience PMP needs.
What you are walking into
150 questions in three hours. Only 135 are scored; the other 15 are unscored pretest items placed at random, which is PMI gathering difficulty data before a question counts. You cannot tell which is which, so treat all 150 as real.
There is one 10-minute break, after question 75. PMI is explicit that once you review your answers and start that break, you cannot return to questions 1 through 75. Pace the first half as if a door locks behind you at 75, because it does.
PMI does not publish a passing score, and nobody outside PMI knows it. Ignore anyone who quotes you a number.
Getting in
A secondary diploma (high school, GED, or global equivalent).
23 hours of project management education, completed before you sit the exam. This is the one requirement people forget: it must be done at exam time, and it can cover scope, schedule, cost, risk, quality, agile, and business analysis.
No project experience is required, which is the whole point: CAPM is for people starting out or adding project skills to another role.
Retakes: up to three attempts in your one-year eligibility window, then a one-year wait.
Keeping it: renew every three years through PMI's continuing certification program.
Recall, not judgment
This is the single most useful thing to internalize. PMP hands you a messy situation and asks what you would do; the right answer is a judgment call among defensible options. CAPM asks what a term means, which artifact is used where, what the steps of a process are. The questions are cleaner and the answers are more definite. Study for recall and recognition, not for situational nuance.
The order that works
Blueprint first. Four domains, and the weightings are lopsided: Fundamentals is 36% and Business Analysis is 27%, so together they are nearly two-thirds of the exam.
Fundamentals and Business Analysis carry the exam. Predictive is only 17% and Agile 20%. If your instinct is to pour time into schedule math, the blueprint says otherwise.
Business Analysis is where most candidates are weakest, because it is the least like general project work. Give it real time.
Pace for the lock at 75. Roughly 90 seconds a question, and treat question 75 as a point of no return.
Your study plan
Exam Content Outline
What the exam is made of.
Four domains, published weights. The surprise for most people is how much sits outside classic project management: Business Analysis alone is more than a quarter of the paper.
Fundamentals (36%) and Business Analysis (27%) are 63% of the exam between them. Predictive is a slim 17% and Agile 20%. Candidates who spend their preparation on critical path math and Scrum trivia are optimizing for the smaller half of the paper.
The four domains
Domain
Weight
What it covers
I. Project Management Fundamentals & Core Concepts
36%
Life cycles and processes, planning, roles and responsibilities, following planned strategies, problem-solving tools. Five tasks.
II. Predictive, Plan-Based Methodologies
17%
When predictive fits, schedule (critical path, WBS, variance), documenting predictive project controls. Three tasks.
III. Agile Frameworks / Methodologies
20%
When adaptive fits, planning iterations, adaptive controls, components of adaptive methodologies, task management. Five tasks.
IV. Business Analysis Frameworks
27%
BA roles, stakeholder communication, gathering requirements, product roadmaps, methodology influence on BA, validating requirements. Six tasks.
Multiple choice, drag-and-drop (enhanced matching), hot spot (point-and-click), and animation/comic-strip items.
Break
One, after question 75. Once you start it you cannot return to questions 1 to 75.
Pass mark
Not published by PMI.
Delivery
Pearson VUE test center or online proctored. Online proctored candidates see only comic-strip versions of media items.
Retake
Three attempts per one-year eligibility period, then a one-year wait.
Renewal
Every three years through PMI's continuing certification program.
What this practice tool reproduces, and what it cannot
The mock matches the blueprint weighting, the 150-item length, the three-hour clock, and the lock after question 75. It reproduces multiple-choice items. It cannot reproduce drag-and-drop, hot spot, or animation items, because those need interactions a static question cannot show. Expect a handful of those formats on the real exam; the knowledge they test is the same knowledge these questions cover.
What this exam is not
Not a junior PMP. PMP tests situational judgment; CAPM tests recall and recognition. The answer to a CAPM question is usually a fact, not a best-among-defensible-options call.
Not one methodology. It spans predictive, adaptive, and business analysis, and PMI says these approaches appear throughout all four domains, not walled off by domain.
Not the PMBOK Guide alone. Questions are mapped to the ECO and drawn from several references, and the ECO deliberately differs from the PMBOK Guide in places.
Domain I 36% · 5 tasks
Fundamentals and core concepts.
The largest domain, more than a third of the exam. It is the shared vocabulary of project work: what a project is, how it is planned, who does what, and the basic tools. Master this and a third of the paper is yours.
The five tasks
Distinguish project, program, and portfolio. A project delivers a defined output. A program coordinates related projects for benefits unavailable separately. A portfolio aligns work to strategy. Size is a symptom, not the distinction.
Distinguish a project from operations. A project is temporary with a defined end; operations are ongoing and repetitive.
Distinguish predictive from adaptive approaches. Predictive plans up front; adaptive plans iteratively as it learns.
Distinguish issues, risks, assumptions, and constraints. A risk is a future possibility; an issue is happening now. An assumption is taken as true without proof; a constraint is a limit you must work within.
Review and critique project scope; apply the PMI Code of Ethics to scenarios; explain how a project can be a vehicle for change.
Describe the purpose and importance of cost, quality, risk, schedule and the other knowledge areas.
Distinguish a project management plan from a product management plan. The project plan governs how the work is run; the product plan concerns the thing being built.
Distinguish a milestone from a task duration. A milestone is a zero-duration marker of a significant point; a duration is the time a task takes.
Determine the number and type of resources a project needs.
Use a risk register and a stakeholder register in a given situation.
Explain project closure and transitions.
Compare the project manager and the project sponsor. The sponsor provides resources and authority and champions the project; the project manager runs it day to day.
Compare the roles of the project team and the sponsor.
Explain the project manager's many hats: initiator, negotiator, listener, coach, working member, and facilitator.
Explain the difference between leadership and management. Management is about systems and execution; leadership is about people and direction.
Explain emotional intelligence and its impact on project management.
Give examples of how to respond appropriately to a planned strategy or framework, for example a communication plan or a risk strategy.
Explain project initiation and benefit planning. A project starts from a business need and is justified by the benefits it will deliver.
The theme of this task is following a plan that already exists, rather than inventing an approach on the fly.
Evaluate the effectiveness of a meeting. A meeting with no purpose, no agenda, and no outcome is a candidate for elimination.
Explain the purpose of focus groups, stand-up meetings, and brainstorming, among other techniques.
These are the everyday facilitation tools an associate is expected to recognize and apply.
Domain II 17% · 3 tasks
Predictive, plan-based methodologies.
The smallest domain at 17%, and the most computational. This is classic waterfall: decide when it fits, build and measure a schedule, and document the controls. Expect the exam's arithmetic to live here.
The three tasks
Identify the suitability of predictive for an organizational structure: virtual, co-located, matrix, or hierarchical.
Determine the activities within each process, and give examples of typical activities.
Distinguish the differences between various project components.
The theme: predictive fits when requirements are stable and well understood, and the path is known up front.
Apply critical path methods. The critical path is the longest path through the network and the shortest time the project can finish; its activities have zero float.
Calculate schedule variance.
Explain the work breakdown structure (WBS) and work packages. The WBS decomposes the total scope into deliverables; the work package is the lowest level.
Apply a quality management plan and an integration management plan.
This is the one task where you should expect to calculate. Critical path, float, and variance are the numeric core of the domain, and at the associate level they are tested as clean, single-step calculations rather than tangled scenarios.
Identify the artifacts used in predictive, plan-based projects, such as the project management plan, baselines, and status reports.
Calculate cost and schedule variances. Negative variance is behind or over; positive is ahead or under.
Predictive projects control by comparing actual performance against a baseline, which is what makes the baseline the reference point for everything.
Domain III 20% · 5 tasks
Agile frameworks and methodologies.
A fifth of the exam. At the associate level this is recognition, not deep practice: know when adaptive fits, how iterations are planned and tracked, and the names and shapes of the main frameworks.
The five tasks
Compare the pros and cons of adaptive versus predictive. Adaptive handles change and uncertainty well; predictive gives predictability when requirements are stable.
Identify the suitability of adaptive for an organizational structure.
Identify the organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors that facilitate adaptive approaches.
The theme: adaptive fits when requirements change often, feedback is valuable, and the path is not clear up front.
Distinguish the logical units of iterations, and interpret their pros and cons.
Translate a WBS to an adaptive iteration.
Determine inputs for scope.
Explain adaptive tracking versus predictive tracking. Adaptive tracks by working increments and remaining backlog; predictive tracks against a baseline plan.
Identify the artifacts used in adaptive projects, such as the product backlog, the sprint backlog, and burndown or burnup charts.
Adaptive projects make progress transparent through radiators and working increments rather than through baseline variance reports.
Distinguish between the components of different adaptive methodologies: Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), and Kanban.
Scrum is roles, events, and artifacts on a fixed cadence. XP centers on engineering practices such as pair programming and test-driven development. Kanban visualizes flow and limits work in progress. SAFe scales agile across many teams.
This is the most recall-heavy task in the domain: know which practice belongs to which framework.
Interpret the success criteria of an adaptive project management task.
Prioritize tasks in adaptive project management.
Adaptive work is pulled in priority order, so knowing how the backlog is ordered and why is the heart of this task.
Domain IV 27% · 6 tasks
Business analysis frameworks.
More than a quarter of the exam, and the domain furthest from general project work. This is where most candidates are weakest, so it is where the marginal study hour pays most. Business analysis is the discipline of understanding what is needed and making sure it gets built.
The six tasks
Distinguish the stakeholder roles: process owner, process manager, product manager, product owner. These are frequently confused, and the exam tests the differences.
Outline why roles and responsibilities must be identified in the first place, which is the point of stakeholder identification.
Differentiate internal from external roles.
The product owner sets priorities and owns the backlog. The product manager owns the product's direction and market fit. A process owner is accountable for a business process; a process manager runs it day to day. Keeping these four straight is a reliable source of exam points.
Recommend the most appropriate communication channel or tool for a situation: a report, a presentation, a conversation.
Explain why communication matters for a business analyst between teams, translating between what stakeholders want and what the delivery team builds.
The business analyst sits between the business and the build, so communication is the core of the role rather than a side activity.
Match tools to scenarios: user stories, use cases, and the like.
Identify the requirements-gathering approach for a situation: stakeholder interviews, surveys, workshops, lessons learned.
Explain the requirements traceability matrix and the product backlog. The RTM links each requirement to its origin and its delivery, so nothing is lost and nothing unrequested is built.
A user story captures a need from the user's perspective in everyday language. A use case describes the steps of an interaction in detail. Interviews go deep with a few people; surveys go wide with many; workshops build shared understanding in a room. The exam wants you to pick the right tool for the situation.
Explain the application of a product roadmap. A roadmap communicates the direction and sequence of the product over time, above the detail of a backlog.
Determine which components go to which releases.
A roadmap is a communication and alignment tool: it tells stakeholders what is coming and roughly when, without committing to task-level detail.
Determine the role of a business analyst in adaptive versus predictive approaches.
In predictive work the analyst tends to gather and document requirements up front. In adaptive work the analyst works continuously, refining the backlog with the team as understanding grows.
The BA role does not disappear in agile; it changes shape, moving from a big up-front document to ongoing collaboration.
Define acceptance criteria: the conditions a deliverable must meet to be accepted, defined so that "done" is not a matter of opinion.
Determine whether a product is ready for delivery using the requirements traceability matrix or the product backlog.
Validation closes the loop that requirements gathering opened: you built what was asked for, and you can prove it against the traceability record.
Where to spend your time
This domain is 27% of the exam and the least like the project work most candidates have seen. The four stakeholder roles in task 4.1, the requirements tools in task 4.3, and the traceability matrix that runs through 4.3 and 4.6 are the highest-yield things to master, because they are both heavily tested and commonly unknown.
Reference
Glossary.
Terms as the CAPM outline uses them, weighted toward the Business Analysis vocabulary that a general project background does not supply.
Acceptance criteria
The conditions a deliverable must meet to be accepted. Defined in advance so that "done" is verifiable rather than a matter of opinion.
Adaptive approach
An approach that plans iteratively and responds to change, suited to work where requirements shift and feedback is valuable. Contrast with predictive.
Assumption
Something taken to be true without proof for planning purposes. Contrast with a constraint, which is a fixed limit.
Constraint
A limiting factor the project must work within, such as a fixed budget or deadline.
Critical path
The longest path through the schedule network and the shortest possible project duration. Its activities have zero float.
Enterprise environmental factors
Conditions outside the project's control that influence it, such as regulations, market conditions, or organizational culture.
Float (slack)
The time an activity can slip without delaying the project. Activities on the critical path have zero float.
Issue
A current, active problem that needs resolution. Contrast with a risk, which is a future possibility.
Milestone
A significant point or event in the project, with zero duration. Contrast with a task duration, which is the time work takes.
Organizational process assets
The plans, processes, templates, and knowledge bases an organization provides to help run projects.
Portfolio
A collection of projects, programs, and operations managed together to meet strategic objectives.
Predictive approach
An approach that plans the work up front and executes to that plan, suited to stable, well-understood requirements. Also called waterfall or plan-based.
Process manager
The person who runs a business process day to day. Contrast with the process owner, who is accountable for it.
Process owner
The person accountable for a business process and its outcomes, distinct from the manager who operates it.
Product backlog
An ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product, refined and reprioritized over time. The adaptive counterpart to a requirements list.
Product manager
The person accountable for a product's overall direction and market fit. Distinct from the product owner, who prioritizes the backlog.
Product owner
The person who prioritizes the product backlog and represents stakeholder needs to the delivery team.
Product roadmap
A high-level, time-oriented view of a product's direction and the sequence of what is coming, above the detail of a backlog.
Program
A group of related projects managed together to obtain benefits not available from managing them separately.
Project
A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. Temporary means it has a defined beginning and end.
Requirements traceability matrix (RTM)
A grid linking each requirement to its origin and its delivery, so requirements are not lost and unrequested work is not built.
Risk
An uncertain future event that, if it occurs, has an effect on objectives. Contrast with an issue, which is happening now.
Schedule variance
A measure of schedule performance: the difference between planned and actual progress. Negative means behind schedule.
Sponsor
The person or group that provides resources and authority for the project and champions it. Distinct from the project manager, who runs it.
Use case
A detailed description of the steps of an interaction between a user and a system to achieve a goal. More detailed than a user story.
User story
A short statement of a need from the user's perspective, in everyday language. The lightweight adaptive counterpart to a requirement.
Work breakdown structure (WBS)
A hierarchical decomposition of the total scope into deliverables and work packages. The foundation for estimating and scheduling.
Work package
The lowest level of the WBS, small enough to estimate and assign.
Common questions
CAPM exam questions, answered
How many questions are on the CAPM exam?
The CAPM exam has 150 questions and lasts 180 minutes. PMI uses a scaled score rather than a published percentage, so there is no fixed pass mark to quote.
What is on the CAPM exam?
The exam covers 4 domains: Fundamentals (36%), Predictive (17%), Agile (20%), Business Analysis (27%). These weightings come from PMI's ECO 2023.
Is this CAPM material current?
Yes. This guide was written from PMI's own published outline, ECO 2023, and last checked against that document on 19 July 2026. That date is shown on every page so you can judge for yourself rather than take our word for it.
Are there free CAPM practice questions?
Yes. Sample questions with full worked explanations are free and need no account. The complete question bank and the full-length 150-question timed mock are paid.
Practise it
The guide above is free. The question bank and the full-length timed mock are the paid part.
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