Practice for the Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) exam with 17 exam-style practice questions, instant answer reveals, and concise explanations of every correct answer. Topics include: How should multiple Scrum Teams, working from the same Product Backlog, select the Product Backlog items they plan to wo. Follow @CertPunch and visit certpunch.com for more certification practice exams and study content.
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What you will practice
- How should multiple Scrum Teams, working from the same Product Backlog, select the Product Backlog items they…
- Who decides the duration of the Sprint?
- What is the essence of Scrum? Select the most appropriate option.
- Who determines how to do the work during the Sprint?
- How long should the Sprint be?
- If three distinct Scrum Teams are working on a single product, how many Product Owners should there be?
Answers and explanations
Tap a question to expand the answer and the exam reasoning. Try to commit to your own pick first.
Q1. How should multiple Scrum Teams, working from the same Product Backlog, select the Product Backlog items they plan to work on?
Answer: A. The Product Owner will present the work and the Developers will select the items they will work on.
Developers self-manage by selecting their own work from the single Product Backlog during Sprint Planning. A strong exam cue is remembering that the Product Owner orders items but never assigns work to the teams.
Q2. Who decides the duration of the Sprint?
Answer: B. Scrum Team
The Scrum Team decides the Sprint length, balancing risk, complexity, and market dynamics. While the Scrum Master facilitates this discussion, accountability rests with the entire Scrum Team. Once set, the duration remains fixed.
Q3. What is the essence of Scrum? Select the most appropriate option.
Answer: D. A small team of people that is highly flexible and adaptive
The essence of Scrum is a small, highly flexible, and adaptive team solving complex problems. Distractors like the Scrum Guide or specific accountabilities describe the framework or rules, not the fundamental team spirit driving empirical process control.
Q4. Who determines how to do the work during the Sprint?
Answer: B. The Developers.
The Developers determine exactly how to turn selected Product Backlog items into a working Increment. This reflects Scrum’s self-management principle. Watch out for options involving traditional roles like team leads or architects directing the work.
Q5. How long should the Sprint be?
Answer: A. Not more than 1 month
A Sprint is a fixed length event of one month or less. This timeboxing creates predictable cycles for inspection and adaptation. Anything longer than one month introduces too much risk regarding complexity and changing requirements.
Q6. If three distinct Scrum Teams are working on a single product, how many Product Owners should there be?
Answer: A. One
A single product must have exactly one Product Owner to maintain a unified vision and a single Product Backlog. For the exam, remember that multiple teams can work on one product, but the product owner role remains singular to ensure clear accountability.
Q7. Who is allowed to tell the Developers which requirements to work on?
Answer: E. The Product Owner
The Product Owner holds the exclusive authority to order Product Backlog items and direct what work maximizes value. While others may offer suggestions, only the Product Owner decides priorities. Use this as a primary cue for questions about backlog management authority.
Q8. What should Developers do if they realize they have selected too much work after starting the Sprint?
Answer: B. Work with the Product Owner to remove some work or Sprint Backlog items as soon as possible.
Developers must collaborate with the Product Owner to negotiate and remove scope, ensuring the Sprint Goal remains achievable. Never choose options that suggest lowering quality standards or expanding the team mid-Sprint. Always maintain focus on the Sprint Goal.
Q9. The Scrum Team consists of: Select three.
Answer: A,B,D. The Scrum Master || The Developers || The Product Owner
A Scrum Team is a cohesive unit made up of one Scrum Master, one Product Owner, and Developers. Stakeholders are strictly external to the core team. Memorize this exact structure, as the framework emphasizes small teams without sub-teams or hierarchical titles.
Q10. Who is responsible for monitoring progress towards high-level goals related to the product?
Answer: D. The Scrum Team
The entire Scrum Team is collectively responsible for monitoring progress toward high-level product goals. Avoid picking individual roles like the Product Owner for this, as the 2020 Scrum Guide emphasizes shared accountability for achieving goals.
Q11. What is the Increment? (Choose the best answer)
Answer: C. The sum of all the usable Product Backlog items completed during the Sprint. Each Increment is additive to all prior Increments and thoroughly verified, ensuring that all Increments work together.
An Increment is the sum of all usable Product Backlog items completed during a Sprint, added to prior Increments. The key distractor fails because simply summing completed items misses that the work must be thoroughly verified and integrated.
Q12. What are the time-boxes for the Daily Scrum and the Sprint Review?
Answer: C. 15 minutes and 4 hours respectively
The Daily Scrum is timeboxed to 15 minutes, and the Sprint Review is capped at four hours for a one-month Sprint. A frequent mistake is assuming the Review and Retrospective share the same maximum timebox.
Q13. As a product expands, should Product Owners consider delegating some of their accountabilities to Product Managers or other individuals knowledgeable about customer interactions and the product market?
Answer: A. No
A Product Owner may receive support from others, but they cannot delegate their core accountability for the Product Backlog. A practical exam cue is to remember that accountability remains entirely with the Product Owner, even when others help.
Q14. Who is accountable for promoting and supporting Scrum? Select the best choice.
Answer: D. The Scrum Master
The Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum and promoting its effective use across the organization. A practical exam cue is to remember that while the whole team lives by Scrum values, only the Scrum Master holds this specific leadership accountability.
Q15. The Developers on the Scrum Team are waiting for a specific software component they need to integrate. The component will be ready in about a month, and the highest-priority Product Backlog Items depend on it. What should the Product Owner…
Answer: D. Ensure the dependency is clearly visible in the Product Backlog and that the Developers have enough independent Items to work on in the next Sprint.
The Product Owner should make the dependency transparent and ensure Developers have independent items to work on. A practical exam cue is that Scrum discourages special wait lists, and Developers should never sit idle while waiting for dependencies.
Q16. What Product Owner activities occur between the end of the current Sprint and the beginning of the next Sprint?
Answer: C. There are no such activities. When the current Sprint ends, the new Sprint begins.
When a Sprint ends, the next Sprint begins immediately, so there is no gap for special activities. A key exam cue is that Product Backlog refinement happens during the Sprint itself, not in a phantom break between Sprints.
Q17. Who is responsible for all product-related activities?
Answer: B. The Scrum Team
The Scrum Team is responsible for all product-related activities, including maintenance, operation, and experimentation. A practical exam cue is that the entire team shares these responsibilities, rather than assigning them to isolated roles or departments.
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