ITIL Practitioner Certification Sample Exam Questions and Answers for Practice

The ITIL (Information technology infrastructure library) practitioner certification is one of the highly regarded certifications in the IT industry. This certification covers the nine guiding principles like Focus on value, Design for experience start where you are, work holistically, progress iteratively, observe directly, be transparent, collaborate, and keep it simple. It also covers three critical areas for the success of any improvement:

•          Organizational Change Management
•          Communication
•          Measurement and Metrics.

Passing the ITIL Practitioner certification is a significant achievement. It demonstrates that you can take the ITIL framework and adapt it to real-life situations. We have compiled a few ITIL practitioner sample exam questions along with the answers with a relevant explanation to the correct answer.

These ITIL practitioner exam questions and answers will help you to quickly review your knowledge and improve chances of pass rate while appearing for the certification test. Considering attendee’s preparation and participation we have produced these questions as a sample exam papers to test knowledge and understanding of the subject. We would like to say that studying these examinations question and the answer is for best practice and will differ during the exam.

After finishing computer-based or web-based multiple choice examination, the accredited training provider that organized your examination will provide result immediately. When passed an official certificate will be sent to the participant through the training provider or examination institute.

Exam Details: https://www.axelos.com/certifications/itil-certifications/itil-practitioner-level

Exam Name: ITIL Practitioner certification in IT service management

Exam Duration: 135 minutes

No. of questions: 40

Passing score: 70%

Validated against: AXELOS

Format: Open book, multiple choice questions

Exam fee: 300 USD

1. What are the most appropriate steps to start working on problem management?

•          Implement ITIL problem management, document responsibilities, and create a RACI model authority matrix.
•          Develop process documentation, train service desk, and implement a knowledge base.
•          Hire a problem manager, create a problem management team, and agree on targets.
•          Identify commonly recurring incidents, develop workarounds, and investigate root causes.

The fundamental objective of problem management is to prevent problems that lead to incidents. The happening of the incident is to be prevented and recurring incidents also will be prevented.

2. The project manager needs to understand how the service desks are working. Which is the best action to take first?

•          Visit a representative sample of service desks and their customers; collect the same data from all of them.
•          Speak to all of the service desks and their customers on the telephone; collect the same data from all of them.
•          Send each service desk a questionnaire for staff and customers to complete and return.
•          Visit all service desks; document their current practices and KPIs and talk to their customers.

To understand how the service desks work, the manager should visit a sample of service desks and their customers and collect data from them.

03. Which of the following is NOT an output of the "What is the Vision?" step in the CSI approach?

•          A clear understanding of the current state of the improvement area of focus
•          A clear understanding of the meaning of the vision, mission and goals of your team
•          A clear understanding of one's position and role in the organization
•          A clear understanding of the overall organizational vision, mission and goals

The output of CSI is continuous improvement in the process with cost-effectiveness, efficiency and process effectiveness.

04. In the first set of improvements, which elements of the cloud services at GCITS are the MOST important to focus on?

•          Value and outcome.
•          Cost and outcome.
•          Value and risk.
•          Cost and risk.

GCITS focus on cost and risk elements of cloud services for an automated approach for deployment and software releases.

05. Which statement describes the purpose of sponsorship within an improvement initiative?

•          Achieve the identified goals by organizing and coordinating people efforts for efficiency maximization.
•          To ensure support from managers or business leaders to promote the initiative and authorize the change.
•          To analyze key stakeholders in order to assess their power, influence and interest in the improvement initiative.
•          To clarify the role played by managers or business leaders in prioritizing changes during the lifecycle of the initiative.

In improvement initiative, the purpose of sponsorship is to ensure support from managers to promote initiative and authorize the change.

06. What is the MOST important reason for using a workshop and meeting action plan?

•          To make sure the equipment needed is available and working.
•          To ensure the workshop covers its objectives.
•          To demonstrate professionalism when planning the workshop.
•          To provide the exact agenda to the workshop delegates in advance.

A workshop is usually conducted for 1-2 days. To ensure that the workshop is successful there is a need for a robust workshop and meeting action plan. This plan is designed to ensure the workshop covers all its objectives.

 07. The local manager in KL knows that the service desk analysts are very likely to resist the change. What is the BEST tactic to overcome this resistance?

•          Work with the internal communications department to publish FAQs on the company intranet.
•          Email the service desk analysts explaining the importance of the improvement to the company.
•          Meet with the service desk analysts and explain how they will benefit from the improvement.
•          Monitor the situation and review in a months’ time to determine if it is still an issue for concern.

In change management, there is always a fear of unknown. It is advised that the manager meets the service desk analysts and explain how the change would benefit them and why they should embrace the change.

08. Which is the BEST example of using the ITIL concept ‘adopt and adapt’ when delivering improvements?

•          Enhance GCITS processes using organization’s ITIL complaint toolset
•          Produce a best practice solution to reduce the cost of support by combining GCITS and DriveYou.com service management processes
•          Align GCITS cloud services with ITIL guidance and other best practice frameworks.
•          Enhance GCITS processes based on a gap analysis between current delivery and required benefits, taking ideas from best practices.

The adopt means deciding the process you want to use. “Request fulfilment” is a process that is intended to help IT organizations to provide pre-defined services for users. The adopt and adapt concepts are very flexible and work with existing and new business developments.

09. An ongoing communications plan includes emails, telephone calls, face-to-face meetings and briefings with various different stakeholders. Which communication principle does this BEST demonstrate?

•          ‘Communication is a two-way process’.
•          ‘We’re all communicating, all of the time’.
•          There is no single method of communication.
•          ‘Timing and frequency matter’.

Communication is to transmit information from one person to another. An effective communication plan includes telephone calls, e-mails, face-to-face meetings etc. “There is no single method of communication” principle demonstrates that communication can flow in many ways.

10. Which activity is used to identify areas of weakness for the KL service desk analysts?

•          Managing stakeholders.
•          Analyzing training needs.
•          Managing sponsors.
•          Creating a sense of urgency.

The areas of weakness are identified by training needs so that performance improvement can be shown.

11. The consolidation project involves bringing together a number of complex systems, processes and ways of working. The project manager needs to communicate progress clearly to the whole organization. Which is the BEST approach?

•          Regular simple non-technical updates.
•          Ad-hoc detailed non-technical updates.
•          Ad-hoc detailed technical updates.
•          Regular simple technical updates.

The best approach for the project manager to communicate to the entire organization regarding the various complex systems processes and the working methodologies can be communicated through regular simple technical updates.

12. Six months after the merger, a few NoImpact.com researchers have reverted to the old way of working. Which is the BEST approach to reinforce the need to adopt the new working practices?

•          Reward and recognize the researches that follow
•          Discipline researchers that do not follow the process
•          Review again in six months to establish whether new practices have been fully adopted
•          Ask project managers which researchers are not delivering on expectations

The new working practices can be reinforced on the researchers by rewarding and recognizing the researchers who follow the new working practices.

13. Which is the BEST example of the communication principle: ‘the message is in the medium’?

•          Business case documents that include detailed risk analysis.
•          A meeting agenda sent to all attendees before every meeting.
•          A selection of presentations and webinars to communicate new policies
•          An email requesting confirmation that information has been understood

The ‘message is in the medium’ is best represented by a selection of presentations and webinars to communicate new policies.

14. Which of the following BEST describes OCM?

•          An approach for managing service change
•          A standard for managing organizational change
•          A standard for managing service change
•          An approach for managing the people aspect of change

Organization change management is an approach to manage change in organizations with respect to people aspect.

15. Which is the most relevant quality metric for this service desk consolidation?

•          Network availability
•          Incident resolution time
•          Cost of network bandwidth
•          Cost per incident

The most relevant quality metric is incident resolution time for incident resolution time.

16. Complaints have been made by customers about delays in resolving incidents and lack of communication from IT about their status. When assessing these complaints, what is the BEST approach to start with?

•          Track the time taken to resolve incidents by logging some dummy incidents.
•          Talk through the incidents with support staff to identify actions
•          Sit in the support operations and see how customers’ incidents are handled
•          Review incident management metrics to see if targets are being met

The best way to handle customer complaints regarding delayed incidents is to sit in the support operations and observe how these incidents are identified.

17. There is currently a lack of team cooperation at GCITS and this may affect the success of the consolidation project. What is the BEST way for GCITS leaders to develop a more collaborative culture? By defining a clear set of behavioral principles that must be followed.

•          Reinforcing the new behavioral strategy through consistent leadership.
•          By mandating staff to be open and transparent with colleagues.
•          By defining a clear set of behavioral principles must be followed
•          By allowing staff to define their own criteria for acceptable behavior

The team cooperation can be reinforced with new behavioral strategy through consistent leadership and collaborative leadership.

18. Which of the following are put into place in ITSM to validate, direct, justify, or intervene?

•          Communication
•          Service development lifecycle
•          Return on Investment
•          Metrics and measurement

The service development life-cycle considers data to improve the process. The values of measurement considered are validated, direct, justify and intervene.

19. Which of the following is NOT one of the different types of metrics used in ITIL?

•          Efficiency
•          Milestones
•          Progress
•          Compliance

There are three types of metrics followed in ITIL. Process metrics, technology metrics and service metrics. Milestone is not a part of the metrics in ITIL.

20. Which of the following is the best way to choose metric hierarchies?

•          The simplest metrics hierarchy
•          People-centric metric hierarchy
•          The most advanced metric hierarchy
•          Metric hierarchies that are a good fit for circumstances and organizational culture

The best way to choose metric hierarchy is choosing the right fit depending on the organization culture and situations. There are three types of metrics; Process, service and technology.

21. Which of the following is an example of good communication?

•          Slow restoration of service
•          Speeding up the delivery of new services
•          Inability to improve services
•          The “black hole” syndrome

A good communication will let the vision, mission, strategy flow across the organization. A good communication will speed up the delivery of new services.

22. Sending an email containing an urgent message to a colleague who has limited access to email is a violation of which of the following communication principles?

•          There is no single method of communication
•          The message is in the medium
•          Verbal handshake
•          We are all communicating all the time

Communication can be in different forms like verbal, non-verbal. Formal communications also can take many forms. It is wise to choose the most appropriate mode of communication from e-mail to telephone.

23. Which of the following is the biggest reason that people resist change?

•          Lack of reward for change
•          Fear of the unknown
•          Change fatigue
•          Fear of additional work

Change brings unknown situations and risks. This creates a fear of unknown. Hence the greatest fear is fear of unknown during the change.

24. Which of the following describes the best way to help people transition through change?

•          Strict supervision
•          Comprehensive documentation
•          Open and frequent communication
•          Compensation

The best possible way to help people to transition smoothly during the change is through open and frequent communication by the leadership to remove the fear of unknown.

25. What is the name given to a database or structured document used to record and manage improvement opportunities throughout their lifecycle?

•          Vision and governance
•          CSI Register
•          Benchmarking Record
•          Backlog register

A Continual service improvement (CSI) register is used to record and manage improvement opportunities throughout the lifecycle.

26. What is the primary reason for establishing a baseline?

•          To standardize the operations
•          To estimate the cost of services provided
•          For defining clear roles and responsibilities
•          For future comparisons

The main reason for establishing a baseline is for benchmarking and for further comparisons.

27. The priority of an Incident refers to?

•          The impact and urgency created by the incident
•          The speed with which the Incident needs to be resolved
•          Resolve the incident in-time with the help of the assigned staff.
•          The path of an escalation to be followed to resolve the incident.

An incident is an unplanned disturbance to IT service. A configuration item which has not impacted a service is also known as an incident. The priority is determined based on the impact and urgency created by the incident.

28. What are the service portfolio components within service Lifecycle?

•          Requirements Portfolio and Service Catalogue
•          Service Knowledge Management System and Service Catalogue
•          Service Knowledge Management System and Requirements Portfolio
•          Requirements Portfolio and Configuration Management System

The service portfolio has three components in service lifecycle. Service catalogue, service pipeline and requirements portfolio are the components.

29.  The BEST definition of an event is?               

•          Detect, understand the event and initiate an appropriate control action.
•          The event can implement and monitor tools
•          The activities of the technical staff are controlled by the event.
•          The event can successfully deliver services by checking the uptime of infrastructure devices

An event is described as a deviation in the normal behavior of any system, environment, process, workflow or a person which requires appropriate control action.

30. What does the Service V model represent?

•          Service management projects are successfully completed with this strategy
•          A road to accomplish efficient and effective resource utilization for Service Delivery and Service Support
•          The testing and configuration levels needed to deliver a Service Capability
•          The perception of the customer and the service user about the business perspective
•          The V model service is a new concept that defines, designs build and tests a service package.