PMP Foundation

When should you gather information for opportunity/capture qualification?

A. During market identification
B. During opportunity/capture development
C. During proposal response development
D. Continuously

Which is the likely outcome of allowing every opportunity through the bid/no-
bid decision?
A. Optimum win rate is not realized
B. Overall win rate is increased
C. Bid resources are best utilized
D. Breeds a culture of success

What are main advantages of an action-based plan in a Gantt chart format?

A. It helps team members take a big-picture view of an entire bid process
Shows start and end points clearly, allocates roles and breaks complex tasks
B.
down into stages, showing gate decisions and review points
C. It helps teams allocate effort during major projects
D It helps bid teams to assess the quality of the proposal documentation as it
. evolves during a bid process

Which phrase BEST describes a tangible value?

A. Customer satisfaction
B. Customer dissatisfaction
C. Customer’s positive reaction to key personnel proposed
D. Quantified savings in reduced delivery time

Which term describes an agreement between organizations prior to a

contractual partnering agreement?
A. Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
B. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
C. WebSphere Business Integration (WBI)
D. Work Share Analysis (WSA)
Who is the BEST author for the first draft of the executive summary?
A. The most senior person in the seller’s organization
B. The proposal manager
C. The marketing manager
D. The salesperson or opportunity/capture manager

On a large, complex proposal, when should the review of completed content plans take
place?
A. After the executive summary is written but before the kickoff meeting
B. After the kickoff meeting but before section writing begins
C. After the proposal resource schedule has been published but before the kickoff meeting
D. After the kickoff meeting but before the compliance checklist is finalized

Which of the following sources would you use to identify customer

requirements?
A. The customer’s RFP
B. The opportunity/capture plan
C. Notes from your meetings with the customer
D. All of the above

If an RFP states, “The remote module shall be designed to meet current ISO
standards,” and the proposal response reads, “The remote module will meet
and exceed ISO standards by the time it is implemented,” which of the following
describes the response?
A. Compliant
B. Responsive
C. Compliant and responsive
D. Neither compliant nor responsive

At what point in the response timeframe should the kickoff be planned?

Immediately— get all the team members engaged as
A. quickly as possible, giving them the maximum time to
work on their sections
About 15 percent into the effort to allow document
B.
preparation and planning to occur
About 25 percent into the effort allowing complete
C.
planning and logistics to be put in place
 At what point in the response timeframe should the kickoff be planned?
Kickoff meetings are optional depending on the effort
D. If they can be planned, great, but they are not
mandatory
Which of the following is the primary consideration when arranging a final
document review team?
A. Invite reviewers who understand the solution and are available
B. Simulate how the customer will evaluate
C. Develop detailed editing instructions for the reviewers.
D. Request that the review team develop the theme statements

Which option BEST summarizes the use of boilerplate in the proposal process?
A. Boilerplate is unnecessary and should not be used
B. Boilerplate saves time and effort that can be applied to all aspects of the bid
Tailored boilerplate can always be used within proposals, but should be
C.
carefully reviewed to be sure it fits the customer
D
All proposals are different, so scope for boilerplate is limited
.

Which of the following statements includes a benefit?

A. The controller has 4MB of memory
B. This model offers rack-and-pinion steering
C. You can avoid road hazards with responsive rack- and-pinion steering
D
Organization X has over 5,000 employees
.

Why is it important to perform an internal lessons learned review after the

proposal has been submitted?
A. To improve the proposal process in the future
B. To discuss what the proposal team did well and ignore the problems
C. To discuss the problems and ignore what the proposal team did well
D. To celebrate the proposal being submitted

Which of the following is written in active voice?

A. It was found that data concerning error rates were not obtained.
B. We will always keep valuable records in an offsite location.
Because the inspection was not performed, the metal press was left
C.
incorrectly assembled.
 Which of the following is written in active voice?
D
The contract was broken by the partners.
.

You have received a request for a 20-page proposal; it is 9 a.m. on Day 1. The
proposal needs to be delivered at 9 a.m. on Day 3.

Based on a 7.5 hour working day, approximately how much working time would
you allow to develop a schedule before writing?
A. As long as it takes
B. 2 hours
C. 3 hours
D. 4 hours

Which of the following attributes would you LEAST expect to find in an efficient
and effective proposal process?
A. Verifiable inputs and outputs at each milestone
B. Document-based reviews
C. Adherence to the process regardless of customer type or size of bid
D. Defined roles, responsibilities, and levels of authority

Which of the following definitions BEST describes a win strategy?

An organization’s written plan outlining how it proposes to achieve its overall
A.
business objectives
An organization’s written plan outlining how it proposes to win a specific
B.
defined opportunity
An organization’s written plan outlining how it proposes to achieve specific
C.
market objectives
D
An organization’s tactical plan to write for a specific defined opportunity
.

Which is an element of customer focus?

A. Presenting features before benefits
Beginning the Executive Summary by thanking the customer for the
B.
opportunity to bid.
C. Beginning the Executive Summary with your organization’s vision
D
Linking the customers needs to the solution in the Executive Summary.
.
Which of these is MOST useful for making your proposal easier to scan?
A. Telegraphic headings
B. Informative heading
C. Captions
D. An index

Which of the following statements BEST describes Features?

A. Are more persuasive than advantages
B. Tell “so what”
C. Tell “what,” benefits tell “so what”
D. Should always be described before benefits

Which of the following is a telegraphic heading?

A. How Our Proposal Is Organized to Ease Evaluation
B. Management Summary
C. Team Organization Evolves As Project Expands
D
Continuity of Support Reduces Program Risk
.

What is the purpose of a daily stand-up review?

A. To review the solution development
To make sure that the solution is compliant and the customer’s requirements
B.
can be addressed
C. To review the price and make sure our margin is achieved
D To review progress and identify potential roadblocks so that hey can be
. resolved

Which of following is the BEST approach when visiting a potential customer?

A. Plan a slide deck that describes your company history and solutions
B. Only speak to the highest-ranking officials
C. Plan a slide deck to explain why the customer should choose you
D. Understand your audience before you plan a slide deck.

Which definition MOST accurately describes a proposal mind map?

A. A proposal management plan
B. A resource plan
Which definition MOST accurately describes a proposal mind map?
C. A content plan
D. A proposal strategy plan

Why is it important to qualify opportunities before committing time and effort?

A. To ensure internal resources are fully utilized
B. To maximize win rate
C. To raise your profile with the customer
D. To undercut the competition

Which of the following would be more likely to be found in a business case than
a value proposition?
A. Risk management strategy
B. Quantified business benefit
C. Timing of the anticipated business benefit
D. Results measurement and tracking

Given no additional information, which of the following opportunity types would

have the highest probability of win?
A. New product in a new market
B. Existing product in a new market
C. Existing product in an existing market
D. New product in an existing market

Which of the following statements regarding team structure is correct?

A joint venture is formed by two or more organizations as a separate legal
A.
entity.
B. Teaming with a supplier would never be considered in a consortia agreement.
An equal partnership is always formed with two companies who have an
C.
equal work share.
D
A prime contractor agreement will never include suppliers.
.

Why should you submit a response matrix with your proposal?

A. To help the customer score the bidders
B. To make compliance easy
Why should you submit a response matrix with your proposal?
C. To allow for hot button identification
D. To make evaluation easy

When should action captions be written?

A. Before you render the graphic
B. After you render the graphic
C. Before you conceptualize the graphic
D. After you conceptualize the graphic

Which of the following is the MOST effective caption?

A. Figure 1. Certification Diagram.
Figure 1. APMP Certification. Career advancement and increased earnings
B. potential are available to individuals who have advanced from Foundation to
Practitioner to Professional level.
C. Figure 1. Certification. The three levels of the program are shown above.
D Figure 1. APMP Certification. The Accreditation program includes three levels:
. Foundation, Practitioner, and Professional.

How much time should be held in reserve for contingency when planning the
proposal schedule?
A. 20%
B. 15%
C. 10%
D. 5%

Where should graphic captions be placed in a proposal?

A. In a legend
B. Below the graphic
C. Outside the graphic
D. Above the graphic

Which of the following tools is used to analyze your capabilities relative to the
competition?
A. Statement of Work Breakdown
 Which of the following tools is used to analyze your capabilities relative to the
competition?
B. Scotsman Test
C. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis
D. Technical Specification

Which of the following would you be MOST likely to use as a proposal writing
guideline?
A. Use one or two word headings
B. Write formally using third person and collective pronouns
C. Include technical acronyms and references wherever possible
D. Remove redundancies and unnecessary words.

Which one of the following accurately depicts the sequence of strategy and
theme development?
(1) Competitive assessment (2) Our strengths and weaknesses (3) Customer
A.
issues (4) Our themes (5) Our strategies
(1) Our strengths and weaknesses (2) Competitive assessment (3) Customer
B.
issues (4) Our strategies (5) Our themes
(1) Our strategies (2) Our themes (3) Our strengths and weaknesses (4)
C.
Competitive assessment
D (1) Customer issues (2) Competitive assessment (3) Our strengths and
. weaknesses (4) Our strategies (5) Our themes

What is the main purpose of a final document review?

To evaluate the proposal for customer focus, compliance, responsiveness,
A.
and clear communication of your win strategy and solution
B. To validate your win strategy and verify compliance
C. To confirm that the offer in the proposal includes acceptable profit and risk
D
To achieve sign-off on the proposal
.

Which of the following guidelines for developing the proposal outline would you
be least likely to follow?
Prepare a top-level, topical outline that follows the customer’s organizational
A.
priority
Which of the following guidelines for developing the proposal outline would you
be least likely to follow?
Allocate pages according to the relative importance of the topic to the
B.
customer
C. Avoid annotating the proposal outline with response instructions
Extend the outline into a proposal responsibility matrix to help manage the
D.
proposal

What is the main purpose for developing proposal strategy?

A. To drive proposal tactics and actions
B. To define the customer’s issues
C. To provide the basis of the work breakdown structure
D. To guarantee a win

Which of the following would BEST demonstrate a customer-focused proposal?

A. Compliance
B. Responsiveness
C. Compliance and responsiveness
D. Noncompliance and lack of responsiveness

Which of these statements BEST describes a theme statement?

A. Theme statements link strategy and solution
B. Theme statements link advantages and benefits
C. Theme statements link discriminating features and benefits
D. Theme statements establish sales objectives

Which is the BEST choice to convey stability?

A. Curved shapes
B. Horizontal and vertical shapes
C. Diagonal lines
D. Graphs and charts
Which of the following is the MOST powerful to include whether or not pricing is
allowed in your Executive Summary?
A. Discriminators
B. Differentiators
C. Value proposition
D. Features

During which activity might you use a mind map?

A. Bidder comparison matrix development
B. Price development
C. Content plan development
D. Kickoff meeting

Which of the following statements is a key principle of writing clearly in a

proposal?
A. Use simple words with precision to make sure your reader understands
B. Make sure your sentences relate and state your key idea at the end.
C. Join your sentences together to make long paragraphs
D. Use acronyms wherever possible to demonstrate deep subject expertise.

What should be the starting point for developing a business development

process?
A. Internal corporate milestones and reviews for each phase.
B. Well-defined inputs and outputs for each phase
C. Clear definitions of roles and responsibilities for each phase
D. Customer buying cycle aligned to BD phases.

Which of the following reflects the proper relationship of value, price, and
customer budget for a successful bid?
A. Value is greater than price; budget is greater than price
B. Value is less than price; value is greater than budget
C. Value and budget are equal
D. Price equals value; price is greater than customer budget

Which of the following is an incorrect application of principles of clear writing?

A. Use personal pronouns, like “we” and “you”
B. Vary sentence length
Which of the following is an incorrect application of principles of clear writing?
C. Place new information before old information in a sentence
D. Avoid using passive voice

In what order should you respond to a list of RFP requirements?

A. Most important item first, followed by items of decreasing importance
B. Alphabetical order
C. In a logical sequence mirroring the relationship between the items
D. In the order in which items appear in the RFP

Which of the following options will customers typically choose?

A. The option that maximizes value
B. The lowest-risk option
C. The lowest-price option
D. The option that maximizes the difference between value and price

Which of the following is NOT true regarding copyrights?

If you do not have permission from the owner of an image, you cannot legally
A.
use that image in your proposal
All images are only protected under copyright law in the country where they
B.
were created
It is legal to use photographs and graphics acquired from stock image
C.
websites
D
Copyright is normally valid with or without a copyright notice
.

What is the MOST effective activity when writing?

A. To write text, then develop graphics
B. To check grammar only if time allows
C. To plan content before you start to write
D. To write the main response before the executive summary

Identify the missing word in the following sentence.

Visual [ ? ] breeds trust in your target audience.

A. discrimination
Identify the missing word in the following sentence.

Visual [ ? ] breeds trust in your target audience.

B. transparency
C. consistency
D. added Value

Which of the following is NOT a viable tool for virtual team management?
A. Screen sharing
B. Shared calendar
C. Instant messaging
D. Hands-off leadership

Which term is generally understood as relating to customer focus?

A. Customer issues
B. Customer requirements
C. Customer budget
D. Customer profile

Which of the following BEST describes an efficient and effective business

development process?
A. A number of processes that are matched to the scale of opportunities
B. One process that is fully integrated into the company quality system
C. One process that is flexible, scalable, adaptable, and documented
A process that recognizes all bids are different and allows proposal managers
D.
full flexibility

Which activity should take place first?

A. Define the opportunity/capture strategy
B. Create a proposal outline
C. Create section outlines
D
Create a requirements checklist
.

Which of the following statements BEST describes an Executive Summary?

A. An optional summary of the proposal
 Which of the following statements BEST describes an Executive Summary?
B. A summary written using corporate or marketing language
A summary that can be used as a roadmap for the rest of the
C.
opportunity/capture plan
D
An introduction to the proposal beginning with a greeting to the reader
.

What is a gate decision meeting during the proposal process referred to as?
A. A qualification meeting
B. A win strategy review
C. A debrief
D. A competitor review
When is the BEST time to request management sign-off on a teaming scenario?
A. After contacting potential partners and gauging their interest
B. After completing a SWOT analysis or bidder comparison matrix
C. After choosing an appropriate teaming structure
D. After making a bid/no-bid decision

If opportunity/ capture strategy development reveals that your company likely

CANNOT do a better job than the incumbent, what is the BEST course of action?
A. Seek out a teaming partner
B. Neutralize the incumbent’s strengths
C. Not compete for the contract
D. Foster customer dissatisfaction with the incumbent’s performance

What is the content plan review also known as?

A. Competitive review
B. Lessons learned review
C. Proposal strategy review
D. Business case review

Which reader is MOST like to process your proposal peripherally?

A. The final decision maker, who reviews after receiving a recommendation
B. The product specialist
C. The market specialist
D. The accounting specialist
 Which of the following statements is a key principle for organizing your
proposal?
The proposal should reuse as much content as possible from previous
A.
winning proposals.
The proposal should provide detailed technical answers to the RFP’s most
B.
complex questions.
C. The proposal should be organized so that it is easy to read and evaluate
D The proposal should be organized to describe our solution in the best way
. possible

What is the purpose of a Gadfly Review?

A micro-level review of the entire proposal to ensure enough detail has been
A.
included
B. A random review to check that compliance is greater than 90%
A review to check that the correct number of graphics are included in the
C.
proposal.
D
A macro review of the entire proposal to ensure it tells a consistent story
.

Which of the following is a responsibility of the Kickoff meeting organizers?

A. To prepare a comprehensive kickoff package in advance
B. To produce the overall response bid schedule after the kickoff meeting
C. To create the requirements checklist during the kickoff meeting
D. To hold the kickoff meeting immediately after the RFP arrives

Which statement MOST accurately describes a responsive compliance matrix?

A. List of customer questions and our responses
B. List of customer requirements and our justified responses
C. List of customer requirements and questions
D. List of our justified responses and our questions

Which of the following terms should be considered last when forming a

customer-focused strategy for the executive summary?
A. Customer issues
B. Customer motivators
C. Customer requirements
D. Requirement gaps
 What is the objective of an opportunity/capture plan review?
A. An assessment to validate the win strategy and required positioning actions
Ensure effective articulation of the bid strategy within the content plan and
B.
verify compliance with the bid request prior to the start of proposal writing
Review process execution and recommend specific improvements where
C.
required.
Independently assess the entire proposal, its readiness and responsiveness
D
to the solicitation, and its effectiveness in conveying strategy, themes, and
.
discriminators

Which of the following pieces of information is MOST appropriate in a customer-

focused executive summary?
A. Competitor names
B. Our profit margins
C. Our pricing schedules
D. Customer issues

When should teaming partners first be identified?

A. As soon as the opportunity is found
B. After the RFP is issued
C. As early as possible before the RFP is issued
D. After the solution is decided

Which of the following metrics should be used to calculate the effort required to
write new text for which no boilerplate exists?
A. 1 page/day
B. 4 pages/day
C. 10 to 15 pages/day
D. More than 25 pages/day

Before writing a proposal, which of these questions should we ask to test the
viability of the opportunity?
A. To what extent have we influenced the requirements?
B. Have we beaten the competition recently?
C. How many people can help write the proposal?
D. Has the customer visited our offices?
 Which of the following statements relating to opportunity/capture plans is
correct?
A. A proposal plan will feed an account plan
B. An opportunity plan is specific to an opportunity
C. An opportunity plan feeds an account plan
D. An account plan is specific to an opportunity