Examworthyexamworthy.comPMI Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) cheat sheet
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At a glance
Format: Multiple choice, closed book
Domain weight map
Heaviest first - spend your time hereHow this exam thinks
CAPM rewards precise knowledge of project management terms, frameworks, and techniques across predictive, agile, and business analysis approaches, not the seasoned judgement the PMP demands.
Spot the trap
Tempting wrong answers, and why they failTempting but wrong
Repeatedly refining one whole product across cycles is the same thing as incremental delivery.
Why it fails
Incremental delivery adds new completed pieces each cycle, but repeatedly refining one whole product rather than shipping separate finished slices is iterative, not incremental.
Project Management Fundamentals and Core Concepts
Tempting but wrong
Drafting the mobile app's solution requirements is a good way to start a needs assessment.
Why it fails
Writing solution requirements assumes the mobile app is the right answer, which skips the needs assessment and commits to a solution not yet justified by a defined business need.
Business Analysis Frameworks
Tempting but wrong
A signed requirements document is the team's contract, so it should govern the current iteration and later changes should wait.
Why it fails
This treats comprehensive documentation and the original plan as fixed authority, which inverts the Manifesto value that prioritises responding to change over following a plan.
Agile Frameworks/Methodologies
Tempting but wrong
A path is the critical path because it starts with the single longest activity in the network.
Why it fails
Starting with the longest single activity does not make a path critical; the sum of the whole path does. A path that starts with a 6-day activity but totals 15 days is only near-critical, carrying 1 day of float, while a longer path elsewhere at 16 days is the true critical path.
Predictive, Plan-Based Methodologies
Tempting but wrong
Adaptive approaches remove the need for any planning at all, unlike predictive approaches.
Why it fails
Adaptive still plans, just in shorter rolling cycles, so claiming it removes the need for planning is wrong.
Project Management Fundamentals and Core Concepts
Tempting but wrong
A situation statement should rank candidate solutions with a recommended option highlighted.
Why it fails
Ranking candidate solutions is solution evaluation work, and including it in the situation statement presumes an answer before the problem has been neutrally described.
Business Analysis Frameworks
Tempting but wrong
A scrum master should assign each developer a fixed task list and dictate the story split because they are accountable for the sprint target.
Why it fails
This casts the scrum master as a command-and-control boss assigning work, which contradicts the self-organising, servant-leadership model.
Agile Frameworks/Methodologies
Tempting but wrong
The critical path is the sequence of activities with the greatest total float, giving the schedule maximum flexibility.
Why it fails
This inverts the concept. Activities with large total float can slip without affecting the finish date, so they are the least constraining, not the critical path. Critical activities have the least float, in fact zero, not the most.
Predictive, Plan-Based Methodologies
Key terms
Exam-day rules
- Read each question for the exact concept it tests. On the CAPM the wrong answers are usually near-miss confusions, so name the distinction before you choose.
- For any calculation, apply the method rather than eyeballing it: find the longest path for the critical path, and use earned value minus planned value or actual cost for the variances.
- Hold the zero-float rule. Activities on the critical path have zero total float, and the critical path is the longest path, not the longest single activity.
- Answer agile questions from current standards. The scrum master serves the team, the product owner orders the product backlog, and story points are relative, not hours.
- Keep validation and verification straight: validation is building the right thing against the need, verification is building it right against the specification.
Revision schedule
- Week 1Map the four domains and set a proportional schedule
- Weeks 2-3Build the Fundamentals through contrasting pairs
- Weeks 3-4Drill the predictive calculations until automatic
- Weeks 4-5Learn Agile from the current standards
- Weeks 5-6Cover Business Analysis and its key distinctions