The Professional Scrum Master assessment does not test whether you have read the Scrum Guide. It tests whether you have understood it.
Our practice exam is here to help you tell the difference before it costs you. It is independent practice, written by Altogether Agile. It is not the official Scrum.org paper, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Scrum.org. It is built to be useful for anyone preparing for a Scrum Master assessment, the Scrum.org PSM I included.
It runs to forty questions in thirty minutes, with the same eighty-five percent pass mark, so thirty-four of forty. That is half the length of PSM I at exactly its pace, forty-five seconds a question. Every sitting draws a fresh set from a larger pool, so you can rehearse until the format holds no surprises. And it is pitched at the difficulty of the real assessment, not a gentle warm-up, which is exactly where the free Scrum Open leaves you short.
What the PSM Paper Is
Professional Scrum Master, PSM, is Scrum.org's certification for the Scrum Master accountability. Scrum.org was founded by Ken Schwaber, a co-creator of Scrum, so the assessment holds close to the source.
PSM I is the entry level. It is eighty questions in sixty minutes. You pass at eighty-five percent, which is sixty-eight of the eighty. You take it online, from anywhere, on your own schedule. There is no training requirement and no set prerequisite. The certification does not expire.
Everything is drawn from one place: the Scrum Guide. Not your workplace flavour of Scrum. Not another body's version. The Guide, as written. There are two further levels, PSM II and PSM III, that raise the bar into applied and deep understanding.
So the honest summary is this. The paper rewards precise understanding of the Scrum Guide, applied quickly to short scenarios.
What Objective Testing Means in Practice
Eighty questions in sixty minutes is forty-five seconds each. That single fact shapes everything.
The questions come in three shapes. Multiple choice, pick one. Multiple answer, pick several. True or false. The multiple-answer ones are where marks quietly disappear. You must select every correct option and no wrong ones. Miss one, or add one, and the whole question is lost. There is no partial credit for being nearly right.
The stems can be long, and so can the options. People skim under time pressure, and skimming is how you misread a question you actually knew. Read the whole thing.
The exam is also literal. It wants the answer that matches the Scrum Guide, not the answer that matches your last project. Two options can both look reasonable. Only one fits the framework as defined.
And a word on the clock. The assessment is unproctored and taken at home, so it feels open-book. It is not. At forty-five seconds a question you have no time to look anything up. Treat it as closed-book and prepare accordingly.
The Mistakes People Make in the Real Exam
Five recur.
They answer from the workplace. Real teams bend Scrum to fit. The exam does not. If your team calls the events "ceremonies", runs a "Development Team", or lets the Scrum Master assign tasks, unlearn all of that for the paper. The Guide defines three accountabilities, five events and three artifacts, in specific words.
They try to look things up. The clock punishes it. Know the material cold, and spend your time reading questions, not searching.
They lose the multiple-answer questions. One right selection out of two feels like progress. It scores nothing. Slow down whenever a question says choose more than one.
They mistake the Scrum Open for a readiness test. Scrum.org's free Scrum Open is worth doing. It shares the format, and a few of its questions reappear in the real pool, so they are marks for free. But it is noticeably easier than the real assessment, and a perfect score on it does not mean you are ready. Plenty of people ace the Open, sit PSM I, and are caught out. Use the Open to learn the format and bank the free questions. Judge your readiness against questions pitched at the real exam's difficulty, not the warm-up's.
They mistake the Scrum Master for a boss. This is the big one. The Scrum Master is a true leader who serves. Not a team lead. Not a project manager. Not the person who decides who does what. Any option that has the Scrum Master directing the work is almost always wrong.
One Worked Question
Here is the reasoning spelled out, on a question in the exam's style.
Scenario. A senior stakeholder tells the Scrum Master that the Developers are too slow, and asks the Scrum Master to assign the tasks so the work speeds up.
What is the best action for the Scrum Master to take?
- A. Assign the tasks to the Developers to help them move faster.
- B. Ask the Product Owner to direct the Developers on who does what.
- C. Coach the stakeholder and the team on self-management, help the Developers surface and remove what is slowing them, and leave the Developers to organise their own work.
- D. Report the underperformance to management.
Answer: C.
The reasoning. Notice the pull. The stakeholder is senior, the request sounds urgent, and A does something. The exam is testing whether pressure makes you abandon the framework.
In Scrum, the Developers are self-managing. They decide how to turn Product Backlog items into an Increment, and who does what. The Scrum Master serves the team and the organisation. They coach, they remove impediments, they help others understand Scrum. They do not hand out tasks. So A breaks self-management outright.
B looks softer, but it moves the same mistake to the Product Owner. The Product Owner orders the Product Backlog, deciding what matters most. They do not direct how the Developers work. D abandons the servant-leader stance entirely and solves nothing.
C is the only option where the Scrum Master acts as a true leader who serves: coaching, clearing the path, and trusting the team to manage itself.
The lesson. The question is not "what would fix the speed?" It is "what would a Scrum Master do here?" Spot the option that keeps the Scrum Master out of the manager's chair, and you have usually found the answer.
This is independent practice material created by Altogether Agile. Professional Scrum Master and PSM are trademarks of Scrum.org. This material is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by Scrum.org. The official assessment, its rules and its current specification live at Scrum.org, so confirm the details there before you book.