How to Prepare for PMP Case-Study Questions: Reading and Solving the New 2026 Format

Let me be upfront: I've never answered a case-study question on the real exam. I took the PMP on July 3, 2026, under the old format, and the case-study section only arrived with the new exam on July 9.

So this post combines two things: what PMI has officially published about the new question types, and how I read and answered long scenario questions on the old exam. Part 8 was about studying on the commute; this time we go into the exam room.

In three lines — A case study is one long scenario, often with a table or graph, followed by several questions, and it's the first section of the exam. Check what the current question asks first, then pick out the approach, the stakeholders, the numbers and the question type in the scenario, and the next questions on the same scenario go faster. PMI doesn't publish how many questions there are, so hold an average pace of 1 minute 20 seconds per question, and remember that once you start a break, there's no going back.

What PMI Has Published About Case Studies

Item	What PMI says
Format	A detailed scenario (it may include graphs or charts) followed by a series of questions on it
Position	The first section of the exam
Number of questions	Not published; it may vary by exam form
New alongside it	Graphic-based questions: you read a chart, graph or other visual and answer from it
Delivery	At test centers and online
Breaks	The first 10-minute break comes right after the case-study section; once you start it, you can't return to that section
Overall time	180 questions in 240 minutes, about 1 minute 20 seconds per question

In short, PMI has published the format, the position and the break rules, but not the number of questions. Some prep sites say each case has 2–5 questions, but that's not a number PMI has confirmed.

The question-type section of the 2026 Exam Content Outline (ECO) PDF includes example screens of a case question and a graphic-based question. Look at them at least once before exam day.

One more tip if you test in a translated language, as I did in Korean: each question has an exhibit button that shows the English original. The two languages aren't shown side by side; you open the original separately. When a sentence in a long scenario reads ambiguously in translation, check the original.

How to Read a Long Scenario

Most questions on the old exam were scenarios too. As I wrote in PMP Pass Review Part 2, I'd read the question in the last sentence before the setup, then cross out the clearly wrong options. Stretched to fit a case study, that becomes four steps.

Step 1: Read the Question First

Before you read the scenario closely, check what the current question is asking. On the old exam, once I'd seen whether the last sentence asked what to do "first" or "next," the focus of the question got clearer. Case-study scenarios are longer, so I expect this habit to pay off even more.

Step 2: Pick Out Four Things in the Scenario

Look for	Clues	Why it matters
Approach	Sprints, backlog, product owner, retrospectives mean agile. Baselines, a change control board (CCB), a WBS mean predictive. Both means hybrid	It decides which process the right answer has to follow
Stakeholders and power	Sponsor, customer, regulator, anyone with a lot of influence, anyone pushing back	It tells you whom to talk to first
Constraints and numbers	Deadlines, budget, regulations, trends in tables and charts	They're the evidence for graphic-based questions and for impact analysis
Question type	FIRST, NEXT, BEST, EXCEPT	The same situation can have different answers

Several questions hang off the same scenario. If you pick out these four things on the first question, you won't have to reread the whole scenario for the next one. Watch EXCEPT in particular: you're looking for the action that doesn't fit, so flip your usual thinking.

Step 3: Choose with the PMI Mindset

When two options are left, go back to the Mindset I summarized in PMP Pass Review Part 1. Three rules look especially useful for case studies:

• Assess before you act. Choosing the strongest action without knowing the cause and impact was often wrong.
• Collaborate before you escalate. Talk to the team and the stakeholders first.
• Follow the agreed process. Agile work goes through the product owner and the backlog; predictive work goes through change control.

There are exceptions. As I noted in Part 1, ethics, legal, safety and urgent-risk issues can call for immediate action.

Step 4: Log Every Miss in Your Error Log

Case-study misses go on the same error-log cards from Part 6. Tag the cause with C, R, M, S, A or T as usual, but for case questions I'd add one line: what you missed in the scenario. Missed the approach clues? That's A. Missed a condition in the question? R. Guessed because time ran short? T. If you keep missing the same kind of information, your reading order needs fixing.

Try It: A Practice Case

Scenario: Moving Three Country Sites to a New Platform

You're the PM on a consumer-goods company's project to move its e-commerce sites for Countries A, B and C onto a new platform.

• The in-house Scrum team (six developers) builds the site screens and features in two-week sprints. The product owner sits in the HQ e-commerce team.
• An external vendor is migrating the existing order and member data. Its scope, schedule and budget are managed against an approved baseline, and any baseline change needs approval from the change control board (CCB).
• Launch is set for the end of Sprint 8. The sponsor, the head of commerce, has already reported that date to the executive team.
• The Country B managing director is highly influential and insists the Country B site must go live before the year-end promotion.

Table 1. Sprint progress (backlog of 240 story points at the start)

Sprint	Planned	Completed	Backlog remaining
1	40	38	202
2	40	35	167
3	40	30	137
4	40	24	113

Table 2. Data migration status (end of Sprint 4)

Measure	Amount
Planned value (PV)	$500,000
Earned value (EV)	$450,000
Actual cost (AC)	$520,000

Question 1

In Sprint 5 planning, the product owner says, "To protect the launch date, we need to plan 40 points again this sprint." What should the project manager do FIRST?

• A. Confirm the 40-point plan as is to protect the launch date.
• B. Ask the sponsor for more developers.
• C. Work with the team to find out why velocity has dropped for three sprints in a row.
• D. Move the launch two sprints later and rebuild the schedule.

Question 2 (Graphic-Based)

Based on Table 2, which statement BEST describes the data migration work?

• A. It is ahead of schedule and under budget.
• B. It is behind schedule and over budget.
• C. It is behind schedule but under budget.
• D. It is on schedule but over budget.

Question 3

During Sprint 6, the legal team reports that a new privacy regulation in Country B takes effect before the planned launch. Once it does, the sign-up screen must include a separate consent step. The Country B managing director says, "The schedule comes first. Let's launch and fix it afterwards." What should the project manager do NEXT?

• A. Launch as planned because the Country B managing director is influential, and handle the regulation after launch.
• B. Stop the current sprint and tell the developers to build the consent feature first.
• C. Hand the situation to the sponsor and wait for a decision.
• D. Analyze the regulation's impact on scope and schedule with the legal team, and help the product owner reflect the required work in the backlog priorities.

Answers and Explanations

Try the questions first, then scroll down.

Question 1: C

Table 1 shows completed points falling three sprints in a row: 38, 35, 30, 24. Finishing the remaining 113 points in four sprints needs about 28 points per sprint (113 ÷ 4 ≈ 28), and recent velocity is 24. Without knowing the cause, you can't know which fix is right. The first step is to work out with the team what's dragging velocity down: impediments, unplanned work, technical debt or something else.

• A ignores the team's actual velocity. The team decides how much to take into a sprint based on its own capacity.
• B escalates without knowing the cause, and adding people doesn't raise velocity right away anyway.
• D changes the schedule baseline without impact analysis or stakeholder agreement. That launch date is also a commitment the sponsor made to the executive team.

Question 2: B

• SPI = EV ÷ PV = 450,000 ÷ 500,000 = 0.90. Below 1, so the work is behind schedule.
• CPI = EV ÷ AC = 450,000 ÷ 520,000 ≈ 0.87. Below 1, so it's over budget.

The variances say the same thing: SV (EV − PV) is −$50,000 and CV (EV − AC) is −$70,000, both negative. On graphic-based questions, mistakes usually come from putting a number in the wrong place, not from the arithmetic. Remember that EV is the numerator in both SPI and CPI, and you're halfway there.

Question 3: D

Compliance isn't negotiable. But jumping straight to telling developers what to build isn't the answer either. You first need to analyze exactly what the regulation requires and how it affects scope and schedule; that analysis decides the next move.

This is a hybrid project, so there are two paths. The consent screen built by the Scrum team goes into the backlog, prioritized by the product owner. If a baseline like the launch date has to change, it goes through the CCB's change control process. Share the analysis with the sponsor and the Country B managing director to reset expectations.

• A accepts a regulatory breach because an influential stakeholder wants it, so it's wrong.
• B bypasses the product owner and pushes work into a running sprint, and it skips the impact analysis.
• C is passive escalation without the analysis the PM can do. Even if it goes to the sponsor, it should go with an impact analysis and options.

In Part 1 I called legal and safety issues exceptions that need immediate action. Here, though, the regulation isn't in force yet, so there's time to analyze its impact. That's why analyzing first and then acting through the agreed process is the right order.

A Time Plan for the New Exam

180 questions in 240 minutes is about 1 minute 20 seconds per question. In blocks of 60, that's exactly 80 minutes.

Questions done	Exam time used (average pace)
60	About 80 minutes
120	About 160 minutes
180	240 minutes

That 80 means something to me. On the old exam, I spent about 80 minutes on the first 60 questions, and at the first break I worried I'd run out of time. With 230 minutes for 180 questions, the average back then was about 77 minutes per 60. On the new exam, the same 80 minutes is exactly average pace.

Here's how I'd run the case-study section:

• You can't know in advance how many questions it has, so manage the pace per question (about 1 minute 20 seconds) rather than by section.
• Reading time naturally piles up on the first question of a scenario. You win it back on the next questions about the same scenario, so don't panic if the first one runs long.
• Before you finish the section, sort out anything you want to revisit. Once you start the break, you can't come back.
• The 10-minute break goes faster than you'd think. As I wrote in Part 2, I went slightly over 10 minutes on my first one.

Practice Resources

• PMI Study Hall: The product page lists "Case Studies" among its contents and says it's built for the new exam launched on July 9, 2026. Essentials currently costs $59 per three months (renewing quarterly) and includes 2 full practice exams (180 questions each), 10 mini exams and 330 extra questions; Plus is $79 per quarter with 3 full exams. Members and non-members pay the same, and it's English only. I used the pre-change version, so I can't judge the new case studies myself. My Study Hall experience is in PMP Pass Review Part 1.
• The 2026 ECO PDF: It includes example screens of case and graphic-based questions. It's free and the most accurate way to see the format.
• Make your own practice: Even old-format questions work. Pick long scenario questions and read them with the four steps above. You can also ask GPT to write scenario-style practice questions, but always check its answers and explanations against official sources. How I used GPT and NotebookLM is in Part 7.

Wrapping Up

Case studies are a new format, but I think they ask the same old question: are you a PM who understands the situation first, works with the team and stakeholders, and follows the agreed process? With longer scenarios, whoever has decided their reading order in advance has the edge.

In Part 10, I compare the PMP, CAPM and PMI-ACP. It's for anyone who doesn't have enough experience yet, or who's curious about the agile certification.

Next: Part 10: PMP vs CAPM vs PMI-ACP

Start from the beginning: PMP Pass Review Part 1

Frequently asked questions

How many case-study questions are on the PMP exam?+

PMI has not published an exact number and only says it may vary by exam form. Some prep sites say each case has 2 to 5 questions, but PMI has not confirmed that.

When do case studies appear on the PMP exam?+

They are the first section. When it ends, you get the first 10-minute break, and once you start that break you cannot return to the case-study section. The second break comes about halfway through the independent questions that follow.

How do I prepare for PMP graphic-based questions?+

These questions ask you to read a table, chart or graph and decide from it. Get comfortable with concepts where you plug numbers straight in, like burndown trends and earned value (PV, EV, AC) with the SPI and CPI formulas, and practice saying in one sentence what the numbers mean.

Can I still study with pre-2026 PMP practice questions?+

The Mindset and core concepts still apply. But the domain weights and question types changed, so practice case-study and graphic-based questions with materials updated for the July 2026 exam.

Sources

• PMI: PMP Examination Content Outline 2026 (PDF)
• PMI blog: the PMP exam change
• PMI: Project Management Professional (PMP) certification
• PMI Study Hall Essentials
• PMI Certification Handbook (PDF)