ICF's own sample set for the PCC exam is small, and a small set only shows you the format. Two practice questions below, in the exam's own best-and-worst format, and what closes the gap once the official set runs out.
Question 1
Evokes Awareness (7.8, 6.6, 7.11) · Domain D: Cultivating Learning and Growth
Over three consecutive sessions, the coach has noticed a pattern: every time the client describes a professional success, she immediately credits her team, luck, or timing. Today she opens the session by describing a major account win her team closed last week. Before the coach can respond, she adds: "We got lucky with the timing, and they did all the core work. I just happened to be in the room." She has done it again, and she has not paused to notice it.
What is the best way for the coach to proceed, and what is the worst?
A. Ask about her most recent success without naming the pattern, to see if she does it again.
B. Let this moment pass without commenting on it.
C. Tell her she isn't giving herself enough credit, and that it's limiting her.
D. Name the cross-session pattern you've observed, and ask what she makes of it now.
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Question 2
Evokes Awareness (7.10, 7.4) · Domain D: Cultivating Learning and Growth
A client has been in a coaching engagement for three months. She joined a startup three years ago, passing on a more stable corporate role to do it. She has now been offered a senior position at a larger company. In today's session she describes the choice as: "Either I stay and accept I'll never be fulfilled here, or I leave and risk everything I've built." She presents these as the only two options and seems increasingly trapped by the framing.
What should the coach say or do next? Pick the best and the worst.
A. Ask what other possibilities might exist between or beyond the two options she has named.
B. Offer a third option you have thought of.
C. Ask what "risk everything" really means and examine what is genuinely at stake in leaving.
D. Ask what happens if she doesn't decide between the two right now.
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Why volume beats a fixed set
A PDF is a fixed set. Once you've read it, the questions repeat what you already know. The PCC exam doesn't test whether you memorized correct answers. It tests whether you can read a scenario you've never seen and pick the response that serves the client's own thinking, not the one that sounds most coach-like. That takes volume and variety.
The current PCC/MCC exam is 78 situational judgment items in 180 minutes, best-and-worst format: you select the strongest response and the weakest from four options, and both count toward your score. ICF has announced a new PCC-MCC exam starting November 10, 2026: 80 items, 44 situational judgment and 36 multiple choice, in 150 minutes. The current exam stays available through March 31, 2027, so check which one matches your test date.
CredentialPrep gives you 202 PCC/MCC scenario questions, each with a full explanation of why the best answer works and why the worst one fails. That is closer to what builds the judgment this exam checks for.
