PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) Practice Exam
Cover all four domains of the modernized PMI-ACP exam — Mindset, Leadership, Product, and Delivery — across Scrum, Kanban, Lean, and XP, with scenario-based questions, instant feedback in Learn mode, and a full timed simulation in Exam mode. Start with a 24-hour free trial.
Start 24-hour free trial →PMI-ACP exam at a glance
- Vendor
- Project Management Institute (PMI)
- Exam name
- PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®
- Blueprint
- PMI-ACP Examination Content Outline (modernized; took effect November 2024), referencing the Agile Practice Guide; verify edition before publish
- Format
- 120 questions (100 scored, 20 unscored pretest), multiple-choice and scenario-based across multiple agile frameworks
- Duration
- 180 minutes (3 hours), no scheduled break
- Delivery
- Pearson VUE test center or online proctored
- Passing standard
- PMI does not publish a fixed passing score; performance is reported by domain and the overall result as pass or fail
- Prerequisites
- Secondary diploma (or global equivalent) + 28 contact hours of agile training + agile experience. PMI recently realigned the experience requirement and added credit for prior learning; an active PMP or PgMP satisfies the experience requirement. Verify current terms with PMI.
- Validity
- 3 years; renew with 30 PDUs
Source: PMI — PMI-ACP Certification Handbook & Exam Content Outline. Verify current details with PMI before applying.
About the PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) certification
The PMI-ACP is PMI’s framework-agnostic agile credential — the one agile certification that spans Scrum, Kanban, Lean, XP, and hybrid approaches rather than locking you into a single method. That breadth is its defining feature: where a Scrum certification proves you know one framework, the PMI-ACP proves you can choose and adapt the right agile approach for a given team and context. In November 2024 PMI modernized the exam, collapsing the old seven domains into four and reframing the credential around Enterprise Agility — applying agile values not just at team level but across an organization. For foundational reading on agile delivery, see the Program & Project Management Fundamentals guide.
PowerKram’s PMI-ACP practice exam reflects the modernized four-domain structure and maps every question to its domain, so your score report tells you exactly which area — Mindset, Leadership, Product, or Delivery — to strengthen.
PMI-ACP exam domains and weights
The modernized PMI-ACP exam splits questions across four domains. Mindset and Delivery are the heaviest at 28% each, signaling that the exam cares as much about how you think and lead in agile environments as about the mechanics of delivering work.
Embracing agile values and principles, experimenting early, building transparency and psychological safety, shortening feedback loops, and embracing change — the cultural foundation of agility.
Empowering teams, servant leadership, emotional intelligence, facilitating problem resolution, promoting knowledge sharing, and building a shared vision and purpose across the team.
Value-driven product work: managing and prioritizing the backlog, defining and refining requirements, maximizing value delivery, and aligning the product with stakeholder and organizational priorities.
Executing agile work: iterative and incremental delivery, optimizing end-to-end flow, quality practices, continuous improvement, and coordinating across teams to deliver outcomes at scale.
Weights are domain-level item percentages from the modernized outline. Source: PMI-ACP Examination Content Outline (Nov 2024).
Who the PMI-ACP is for
The PMI-ACP is aimed at practitioners who actually work on or facilitate agile teams — and the modernized credential explicitly widened its audience to include product roles. Because it is framework-agnostic, it suits people who move across methods rather than living in one.
- Scrum Masters and agile coaches who want a credential that proves breadth beyond a single framework.
- Product owners and product managers — a primary audience the modernized exam now explicitly targets.
- Agile project and delivery managers leading teams across Scrum, Kanban, Lean, and hybrid setups.
- PMP holders adding agile depth — an active PMP or PgMP satisfies the PMI-ACP experience requirement.
If you want the broad project-management foundation first, the PMP pairs naturally with the PMI-ACP — and waives its experience requirement. For role-by-role salary ranges and the agile and product career paths the PMI-ACP supports, see the Career Hub — Product Manager role guide.
What this PMI-ACP practice exam delivers
Learn mode
Get the correct answer, the explanation, and why the other choices were wrong — immediately after each question. Built for the “which framework/practice fits this scenario” judgment the PMI-ACP rewards.
Exam mode
120 questions on the real 3-hour clock with no scheduled break — build the pacing and stamina the actual PMI-ACP exam requires.
Source-linked explanations
Every answer cites the PMI source it derives from (the modernized Exam Content Outline or the Agile Practice Guide) so you can verify and dig deeper.
Score by PMI-ACP domain
Your results break down across all four domains — Mindset, Leadership, Product, and Delivery, weighted as on the real exam — so practice shows exactly where to focus.
Sample PMI-ACP practice questions
Ten free questions across the four domains and multiple agile frameworks, with full explanations. The complete bank is available with the 24-hour trial.
A team is using Scrum. What is the Product Owner’s primary responsibility?
- Owning and prioritizing the product backlog to maximize value
- Writing the team’s code
- Managing and reporting team velocity
- Facilitating the daily scrum and removing impediments
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — Own and prioritize the backlog. The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product by managing and ordering the product backlog so the team works on the most valuable items first.
Why not the others: writing code (B) is the developers’ work; velocity (C) is a team metric, not owned by the PO; facilitating the daily scrum and removing impediments (D) is the Scrum Master’s role.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Product → Further reading: PowerKram — Scrum Roles & Backlog →A stakeholder wants frequent, lightweight updates on team progress. Which agile practice best supports this?
- The daily stand-up (daily scrum)
- A Gantt chart
- Phase-gate reviews
- Earned value analysis
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — The daily stand-up. The daily stand-up is a short, regular synchronization where the team shares progress, plans, and impediments — the natural agile mechanism for frequent, low-overhead status visibility.
Why not the others: Gantt charts (B), phase-gate reviews (C), and earned value (D) are predictive/plan-driven tools, not lightweight agile cadences.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Delivery →A team is struggling with uncontrolled scope creep. Which agile artifact is the primary tool for managing scope and priorities?
- The product backlog
- The risk register
- The project charter
- The test plan
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — The product backlog. In agile, the prioritized product backlog is the single source of scope. New requests are added, ordered, and traded off against existing items rather than silently expanding the work — which is how agile controls scope.
Why not the others: a risk register (B) tracks risks; a project charter (C) is a high-level authorization document; a test plan (D) is a quality artifact — none manages evolving scope.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Product →A manager asks how agile handles changing requirements late in a project. What is the agile approach?
- Welcome and embrace change through short iterative cycles and feedback
- Lock the scope early and resist changes
- Avoid stakeholder input to keep the plan stable
- Switch to waterfall planning
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — Embrace change through iteration. An agile core principle is welcoming changing requirements, even late, to deliver competitive advantage. Short iterations and frequent feedback make incorporating change cheap and routine rather than disruptive.
Why not the others: locking scope (B), avoiding stakeholders (C), and reverting to waterfall (D) all contradict agile values — they treat change as a threat instead of a source of value.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Mindset → Further reading: PowerKram — Embracing Change →A distributed team wants to improve collaboration and reduce misunderstandings. Which agile principle most directly supports this?
- Favoring direct, face-to-face (or real-time) communication
- Relying on exhaustive written documentation
- Routing all communication through a management hierarchy
- Working strictly in sequential, siloed tasks
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — Favor direct communication. Agile values direct, high-bandwidth conversation as the most effective way to convey information — for distributed teams this means real-time tools and deliberate communication strategies rather than relying solely on documents.
Why not the others: exhaustive documentation (B), hierarchical routing (C), and siloed sequential work (D) all add latency and reduce the direct collaboration agile depends on.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Mindset →A team uses Kanban. What does a work-in-progress (WIP) limit control?
- The number of items allowed in progress at once, to improve flow
- The size of the team
- The project budget
- The frequency of releases
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — Items in progress, to improve flow. WIP limits cap how many items can be worked simultaneously. By preventing overload they expose bottlenecks, reduce context-switching, and improve end-to-end flow and cycle time — the heart of Kanban.
Why not the others: WIP limits don’t set team size (B), budget (C), or release cadence (D); they govern flow through the system.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Delivery (flow) → Further reading: PowerKram — Kanban & Flow →A stakeholder asks how the team tracks progress toward a release goal, including added scope. Which chart is most appropriate?
- A burnup chart
- Cost variance (CV)
- The schedule baseline
- A responsibility (RACI) matrix
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — A burnup chart. A burnup chart plots completed work against total scope over time, so it shows progress toward the goal and visibly reflects scope changes (the total line moves) — making it well suited to tracking toward a release.
Why not the others: cost variance (B) and the schedule baseline (C) are predictive earned-value/plan tools; a RACI matrix (D) assigns responsibilities, not progress.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Delivery →A team is holding a sprint retrospective. What is the primary goal of this meeting?
- To inspect how the team worked and identify concrete improvements
- To assign tasks for the next sprint
- To finalize and freeze the product scope
- To approve the project budget
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — Inspect and identify improvements. The retrospective is the team’s dedicated continuous-improvement event: it inspects the process, relationships, and tools from the last iteration and produces actionable improvements for the next — central to the agile Mindset domain.
Why not the others: assigning tasks (B) happens in planning; freezing scope (C) is anti-agile; approving budget (D) is a governance activity, not a retrospective outcome.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Mindset (continuous improvement) → Further reading: PowerKram — Retrospectives →A team uses Extreme Programming (XP). Which of the following is a core XP engineering practice?
- Pair programming
- Phase-gate review
- PERT analysis
- Scope freeze
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — Pair programming. Pair programming — two developers working together at one workstation — is a hallmark XP engineering practice, alongside TDD, continuous integration, and refactoring.
Why not the others: phase-gate review (B) and PERT (C) are predictive techniques; scope freeze (D) runs counter to agile — none is an XP practice.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Delivery (engineering practices) →A manager asks how agile builds quality in rather than testing it in at the end. Which practice supports this?
- Test-driven development (TDD)
- Leaving all testing to a final phase
- Manual inspection only at release
- Reducing scope to avoid defects
Show answer & explanation
Correct: A — Test-driven development. TDD writes tests before code, so quality is built in continuously and defects are caught immediately. It embodies the agile preference for early, automated, continuous quality over end-of-cycle inspection.
Why not the others: final-phase testing (B) and release-only manual inspection (C) detect defects late, when they’re costly; reducing scope (D) avoids work, it doesn’t build quality.
Source: PMI-ACP Exam Content Outline — Delivery (quality) → Further reading: PowerKram — Built-in Quality & TDD →Keep going: Learning & Career resources
An agile credential earns its return when paired with the broader delivery fundamentals and a clear sense of the agile and product roles it opens up. Two PowerKram hubs back this exam up.
Deep dive: PMI-ACP exam structure, the 2024 modernization, eligibility, study path & recertification
Exam structure and how it’s scored
The PMI-ACP exam delivers 120 questions in 180 minutes (3 hours) with no scheduled break. Of the 120, 100 are scored and 20 are unscored pretest items mixed in randomly, so treat every question with equal effort. Questions are multiple-choice and scenario-based, and span multiple frameworks — expect items that require you to recognize when Scrum, Kanban, Lean, or a hybrid fits. PMI does not publish a fixed passing percentage; results are reported by domain with an overall pass or fail. Read the agile fundamentals guide →
The 2024 modernization — what changed
In November 2024 PMI modernized the PMI-ACP. The old seven domains were consolidated into four (Mindset, Leadership, Product, Delivery), the training requirement increased from 21 to 28 contact hours, and the credential was reframed around Enterprise Agility — applying agile beyond a single team to align work with organizational strategy and optimize flow across teams. The audience was also widened to include product roles. If you are studying from older (pre-2024) materials, confirm they reflect the four-domain structure. Read the agile frameworks guide →
Eligibility
To sit the PMI-ACP you need a secondary diploma (or global equivalent), 28 contact hours of agile training, and agile experience. PMI’s recent global practice analysis realigned the experience requirement and introduced credit for prior learning, so confirm the current experience terms on PMI’s site. An active PMP or PgMP satisfies the experience requirement. PMI audits a share of applications, so document your agile experience clearly using PMI terminology. Read the agile-career guide →
Realistic study path
Because the exam is framework-agnostic and scenario-based, study breadth across Scrum, Kanban, Lean, and XP, and practice choosing the right approach for a given situation rather than memorizing one framework. Weight your prep toward Mindset and Delivery (28% each), but don’t neglect Leadership (25%) — the modernized exam leans heavily into servant leadership, emotional intelligence, and team facilitation. The Agile Practice Guide is the core PMI reference. PowerKram’s domain-level scoring surfaces your weakest domain early. Read the agile study guide →
Cost, scheduling, and retake policy
The PMI-ACP exam fee is reduced for PMI members, and membership includes access to the Agile Practice Guide and other resources. The exam is delivered at Pearson VUE centers or online with a proctor. You may attempt the exam up to three times within your one-year eligibility period. Verify current fees and policies on PMI’s site before applying. PMI’s official PMI-ACP page →
Recertification (PDUs) and career outlook
The PMI-ACP is valid for three years and renewed with 30 PDUs per cycle — half the PMP’s 60. As the majority of project-driven organizations now use agile in some form, a framework-agnostic agile credential helps practitioners stand out for Scrum Master, agile coach, product owner, and agile delivery roles — especially as agility scales to the enterprise level the modernized exam emphasizes. For salary ranges and role-specific paths, see the Career Hub. Career Hub — Product Manager role →
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