216 Questions about Testing

1.       Introduction

Software Testing (Software Quality Assurance) is a unique IT job market niche for those who have limited time frame to change career path to a well paid profession.

The profession is easy to learn. Simply put, the job of a software tester is in finding and reporting differences between actual behavior of a software product and its expected behavior. The more technical knowledge the person has, the more jobs that person could qualify for. But even with very limited technical skills you can test many web applications from the user stand point – email, on-line retail store, web-communities, on-line banking, games, educational services, and many others.

Novice testers have many questions about software testing and the actual work that they are going to perform.  As novice testers, you should be aware of certain facts in the software testing profession.  The gist of the questions on software testing given below will certainly help to advance you in your software-testing career.  These ‘testing truths’ are applicable to and helpful for experienced testing professionals as well.  Apply each and every testing truth mentioned below in your career and you will never regret what you do.

I have attempted to compile some of the best definitions provided for the software testing tools, techniques and methodologies in this document. I hope this document will definitely make sense to some people looking for a good career in Software Testing and especially to the rookies who aim at getting one source point for all the FAQ’s on Software Testing.

2.       Abbreviations Used                                                                                                              

  

Short Code	Description
LLD	Low Level Document
HLD	High Level Document
SRS	Software Requirement Specifications
GUI	Graphic User Interface
OS	Operating System
ITG	Independent Test Group
QA	Quality Assurance
QC	Quality Control
BVA	Boundary Value Analysis
ECP	Equivalence Class Partitioning
SQF	Software Quality Factors
WRQ Reflection	Terminal Emulation Software that connects Windows users to applications on UNIX
SQL	Structured Query Language
BRS	Business Requirement Specifications
LLM	Low Level Module
HLM	High Level  Module
SQA	Software Quality Assurance
SQC	Software Quality Control
TDD	Technical Design Document
AUT	Application Under Test
PM	Project Manager
PL	Project Leader

3.       Questions on Testing Terminology and Tools            

1. What is Re-testing?

If we do testing to test whether a particular fix done by developers for an identified bug is fixed or not, it is called Re-Testing.

2. What documents we need/refer to make a test plan?

Most required SRS documentation

3. Real time question: We can refer to LLD for clear information about requirements, then what is the use of referring SRS doc in V model, Make out the difference.

SRS is Software requirement specification, which contains the detailed description of what the user expects the application or software to perform. LLD is nothing but logic design/ code of control flow & data flow in the software or application.

In order to detect defects at the early stages of software development cycle. Testers have to be provided with both SRS and LLD.

4. Difference between smoke testing and sanity testing?

Smoke Testing is non-exhaustive software testing, ascertaining that the most crucial functions of a program work, but not bothering with finer details.

Sanity Testing is a cursory testing; it is performed whenever a cursory testing is sufficient to prove the application is functioning according to specifications. This level of testing is a subset of regression testing. It normally includes a set of core tests of basic GUI functionality to demonstrate connectivity to the database, Application servers, printers, etc.

5. What is Test Bed?

An execution environment configured for testing. May consist of specific hardware, OS, network topology, configuration of the product under test, other application or system software, etc. The Test Plan for a project should enumerate the test beds(s) to be used.

6. What is Software Requirements Specification?

A deliverable that describes all data, functional and behavioral requirements, all constraints, and all validation requirements for software.

7. What is Soak Testing?

Running a system at high load for a prolonged period of time. For example, running several times more transactions in an entire day (or night) than would be expected in a busy day, to identify and performance problems that appear after a large number of transactions have been executed.

8. What is exactly the technical definition of a build?

The application under test is known as Build.

OR

The executable software which is under test.

9. What is Scalability Testing?

Performance testing focused on ensuring the application under test gracefully handles increases in work load.

10. What is Release Candidate?

A pre-release version, which contains the desired functionality of the final version, but which needs to be tested for bugs (which ideally should be removed before the final version is released).

11. What is Ramp Testing?

Continuously raising an input signal until the system breaks down.

12. What is Quality System?

The organizational structure, responsibilities, procedures, processes, and resources for implementing quality management.

13. What is Quality Policy?

The overall intentions and direction of an organization as regards quality as formally expressed by top management.

14. What is Quality Management?

That aspect of the overall management function that determines and implements the quality policy.

15. What is Quality Control?

The operational techniques and the activities used to fulfill and verify requirements of quality.

16. What is Quality Circle?

A group of individuals with related interests that meet at regular intervals to consider problems or other matters related to the quality of outputs of a process and to the correction of problems or to the improvement of quality.

17. What is Quality Audit?

A systematic and independent examination to determine whether quality activities and related results comply with planned arrangements and whether these arrangements are implemented effectively and are suitable to achieve objectives.

18. What is Quality Assurance?

All those planned or systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that a product or service is of the type and quality needed and expected by the customer.

19. What is Monkey Testing?

Testing a system or an Application on the fly, i.e. just few tests here and there to ensure the system or an application does not crash out.

20. What is Metric?

A standard of measurement. Software metrics are the statistics describing the structure or content of a program. A metric should be a real objective measurement of something such as number of bugs per lines of code.

21. What is Localization Testing?

This term refers to making software specifically designed for a specific locality.

22. What is Independent Test Group (ITG)?

A group of people whose primary responsibility is software testing.

23. What is Gorilla Testing?

Testing one particular module, functionality heavily.

24. What is Gray Box Testing?

A combination of Black Box and White Box testing methodologies, testing a piece of software against its specification but using some knowledge of its internal workings.

25. What is Functional Specification?

A document that describes in detail the characteristics of the product with regard to its intended features.

26. What is Functional Decomposition?

A technique used during planning, analysis and design; creates a functional hierarchy for the software.

27. What is Exhaustive Testing?

Testing which covers all combinations of input values and preconditions for an element of the software under test.

28. What is Equivalence Partitioning?

A test case design technique for a component in which test cases are designed to execute representatives from equivalence classes.

29. What is Equivalence Class?

A portion of a component’s input or output domains for which the component’s behavior is assumed to be the same from the component’s specification.

30. What is Endurance Testing?

Checks for memory leaks or other problems that may occur with prolonged execution.

31. What is testing?

Testing involves operation of a system or application under controlled conditions and evaluating the results (eg, ‘if the user is in interface A of the application while using hardware B, and does C, then D should happen’). The controlled conditions should include both normal and abnormal conditions. Testing should intentionally attempt to make things go wrong to determine if things happen when they shouldn’t or things don’t happen when they should. It is oriented to ‘detection’. (See the Bookstore section’s ‘Software Testing’ category for a list of useful books on Software Testing.).

 Organizations vary considerably in how they assign responsibility for QA and testing. Sometimes they’re the combined responsibility of one group or individual. Also common are project teams that include a mix of testers and developers, who work closely together, with overall QA processes monitored by project managers. It will depend on what best fits an organization’s size and business structure.

32. What is Depth Testing?

A test that exercises a feature of a product in full detail.

33. What is Dependency Testing?

Examines an application’s requirements for pre-existing software, initial states and configuration in order to maintain proper functionality.

34. What is Defect?

Non conformance to requirements or functional / program specification

35. What is Debugging?

The process of finding and removing the causes of software failures.

36. What is Cyclomatic Complexity?

A measure of the logical complexity of an algorithm, used in white-box testing.

37. What is Conversion Testing?

Testing of programs or procedures used to convert data from existing systems for use in replacement systems.

38. What is Component?

A minimal software item for which a separate specification is available.

39. What is Code Coverage?

An analysis method that determines which parts of the software have been executed (covered) by the test case suite and which parts have not been executed and therefore may require additional attention.

40. What is Cause Effect Graph?

A graphical representation of inputs and the associated outputs effects which can be used to design test cases.

41. What is Breadth Testing?

A test suite that exercises the full functionality of a product but does not test features in detail.

42. What is Branch Testing?

Testing in which all branches in the program source code are tested at least once.

43. What is Branch Testing?

Testing in which all branches in the program source code are tested at least once.

44. What is Boundary Value Analysis?

BVA is similar to Equivalence Partitioning but focuses on “corner cases” or values that are usually out of range as defined by the specification. This means that if a function expects all values in range of negative 100 to positive 1000, test inputs would include negative 101 and positive 1001.

45. What is Boundary Value Analysis?

BVA is similar to Equivalence Partitioning but focuses on “corner cases” or values that are usually out of range as defined by the specification. This means that if a function expects all values in range of negative 100 to positive 1000, test inputs would include negative 101 and positive 1001.

46. What is Boundary Testing?

Test which focus on the boundary or limit conditions of the software being tested. (Some of these tests are stress tests).

47. What is Binary Portability Testing?

Testing an executable application for portability across system platforms and environments, usually for conformation to an ABI specification.

48. What is Baseline?

The point at which some deliverable produced during the software engineering process is put under formal change control.

49. What is Basis Set?

The set of tests derived using basis path testing.

50. What is Basis Path Testing?

A white box test case design technique that uses the algorithmic flow of the program to design tests.

51. What is Basic Block?

A sequence of one or more consecutive, executable statements containing no branches.

52. What is Backus-Naur Form?

A Meta language used to formally describe the syntax of a language.

53. How do you debug an ASP.NET Web application?

Attach the aspnet_wp.exe process to the DbgClr debugger.

54. Why are there five tracing levels in System.Diagnostics.TraceSwitcher?

The tracing dumps can be quite verbose. For applications that are constantly running you run the risk of overloading the machine and the hard drive. Five levels range from none to Verbose, allowing you to fine-tune the tracing activities.

55. What’s the difference between the Debug class and Trace class?

Documentation looks the same. Use Debug class for debug builds, use Trace class for both debug and release builds.

56. What is the difference between QC and QA?

Quality assurance is the process where the documents for the product to be tested are verified with actual requirements of the customers. It includes inspection, auditing, code review, meeting etc. Quality control is the process where the product is actually executed and the expected behavior is verified by comparing with the actual behavior of the software under test. All the testing types like black box testing, white box testing comes under quality control. Quality assurance is done before quality control.

57. What is a scenario?

A scenario defines the events that occur during each testing session. For example, a scenario defines and controls the number of users to emulate, the actions to be performed, and the machines on which the virtual users run their emulations.

58. What is I18N Testing?

I18N Testing is “Internationalization testing” Determine whether your developed product’s support for international character encoding methods is sufficient and whether your product development methodologies take into account international coding standards.

59. What is ‘Software Testing’?

Testing involves operation of a system or application under controlled conditions and evaluating the results (eg, ‘if the user is in interface A of the application while using hardware B, and does C, then D should happen’). The controlled conditions should include both normal and abnormal conditions. Testing should intentionally attempt to make things go wrong to determine if things happen when they shouldn’t or things don’t happen when they should. It is oriented to ‘detection’. (See the Bookstore section’s ‘Software Testing’ category for a list of useful books on Software Testing.)

Organizations vary considerably in how they assign responsibility for QA and testing. Sometimes they’re the combined responsibility of one group or individual. Also common are project teams that include a mix of testers and developers, who work closely together, with overall QA processes, monitored by project managers. It will depend on what best fits an organization’s size and business structure.

60. How can new Software QA processes be introduced in an existing organization?

 A lot depends on the size of the organization and the risks involved. For large organizations with high-risk (in terms of lives or property) projects, serious management buy-in is required and a formalized QA process is necessary. • Where the risk is lower, management and organizational buy-in and QA implementation may be a slower, step-at-a-time process. QA processes should be balanced with productivity so as to keep bureaucracy from getting out of hand. • For small groups or projects, a more ad-hoc process may be appropriate, depending on the type of customers and projects. A lot will depend on

Team leads or managers, feedback to developers, and ensuring adequate communications among customers, managers, developers, and testers. • The most value for effort will be in (a) requirements management processes, with a goal of clear, complete, testable requirement specifications embodied in requirements or design documentation and (b) design inspections and code inspections.

61. What is verification?

Verification typically involves reviews and meetings to evaluate documents, plans, code, requirements, and specifications. This can be done with checklists, issues lists, walkthroughs, and inspection meetings.

62. What is validation?

Validation typically involves actual testing and takes place after verifications are completed. The term ‘IV & V’ refers to Independent Verification and Validation.

63. What is a ‘walkthrough’?

A ‘walkthrough’ is an informal meeting for evaluation or informational purposes. Little or no preparation is usually required.

64. What is White box testing?

Based on knowledge of the internal logic of an application’s code. Tests are based on coverage of code statements, branches, paths, conditions.

65. What is unit testing?

The most ‘micro’ scale of testing; to test particular functions or code modules. Typically done by the programmer and not by testers, as it requires detailed knowledge of the internal program design and code. Not always easily done unless the application has a well-designed architecture with tight code; may require developing test driver modules or test harnesses.

66. What is incremental integration testing?

Continuous testing of an application as new functionality is added; requires that various aspects of an application’s functionality be independent enough to work separately before all parts of the program are completed, or that test drivers be developed as needed; done by programmers or by testers.

67. What is integration testing?

Testing of combined parts of an application to determine if they function together correctly. The ‘parts’ can be code modules, individual applications, client and server applications on a network, etc. This type of testing is especially relevant to client/server and distributed systems.

68. What is functional testing?

Black-box type testing geared to functional requirements of an application; this type of testing should be done by testers. This doesn’t mean that the programmers shouldn’t check that their code works before releasing it (which of course applies to any stage of testing.)

69. What is end-to-end testing?

Similar to system testing; the ‘macro’ end of the test scale; involves testing of a complete application environment in a situation that mimics real-world use, such as interacting with a database, using network communications, or interacting with other hardware, applications, or systems if appropriate.

70. What is regression testing?

When a tester finds some defected modules in a product he sends them for rectification to the developer. Retesting is done to check whether the defected modules are rectified by the developer or not, whereas Regression Testing is done to find out whether the rectified modules affect the other modules or not.

71. What is load testing?

Testing an application under heavy loads, such as testing of a web site under a range of loads to determine at what point the system’s response time degrades or fails.

72. What is stress testing?

Term often used interchangeably with ‘load’ and ‘performance’ testing. Also used to describe such tests as system functional testing while under unusually heavy loads, heavy repetition of certain actions or inputs, input of large numerical values, Large complex queries to a database system, etc.

73. What is performance testing?

Term often used interchangeably with ’stress’ and ‘load’ testing. Ideally ‘performance’ testing (and any other ‘type’ of testing) is defined in requirements documentation or QA or Test Plans.

74. What is usability testing?

Testing for ‘user-friendliness’. Clearly this is subjective, and will depend on the targeted end-user or customer. User Interviews, surveys, video recording of user sessions, and other techniques can be used. Programmers and testers are usually not appropriate as usability testers.

75. What is install/uninstall testing?

Testing of full, partial, or upgrade install/uninstall processes.

76. What is recovery testing?

Testing how well a system recovers from crashes, hardware failures, or other catastrophic problems.

77. What is security testing?

Testing how well the system protects against unauthorized internal or external access, willful damage, etc;

78. What is compatibility testing?

Testing how well software performs in a particular hardware/software/operating system/network/etc. environment.

79. What is exploratory testing?

Often taken to mean a creative, informal software test that is not based on formal test plans or test cases; testers may be learning the software as they test it.

80. What is ad-hoc testing?

Similar to exploratory testing, but often taken to mean that the testers have significant understanding of the software before testing it. What is user acceptance testing - determining if software is satisfactory to an end-user or customer.

81. What is comparison testing?

Comparing software weaknesses and strengths to competing products.

82. What is alpha testing?

Testing of an application when development is nearing completion; minor design changes may still be made as a result of such testing. Typically done by end-users or others, not by programmers or testers.

83. What is beta testing?

Testing when development and testing are essentially completed and final bugs and problems need to be found before final release.

Typically done by end-users or others, not by programmers or testers.

84. What is mutation testing?

A method for determining if a set of test data or test cases is useful, by deliberately introducing various code changes (’bugs’) and retesting with the original test data/cases to determine if the ‘bugs’ are detected. Proper implementation requires large computational resources.

85. Do we need to have the knowledge of coding for performing white box testing?

Yes, development/coding knowledge required for white box testing

86. What are the software quality factors? And Does Localization testing and internationalization testing comes into black box testing or white box testing?

Here is the list of 11 SQF:

Correctness

Reliability

Efficiency

Integrity

Maintainability

Usability

Interoperability

Portability

Reusability

Flexibility

Testability

Localization and Internationalization comes under Black box Testing.

87. What is the difference between system testing and end to end testing?

System testing is done with respect to the Application functionality by considering that system as an individual (internal functionality flow).

88. Where as in End to end testing?

We will verify the application end to end functional flow by considering all other integrated applications functionality (includes upstream and downstream systems connected to that particular application for which System Testing is completed as mentioned above)

89. Who will collect the software metrics?

Test Engineer and Test Lead will collect the software metrics.

90. What are the different kinds of software metrics?

Product metrics, quality metrics and project metrics

91. How to test UNIX environment applications?

For testing in UNIX environment we need to have connection to remote UNIX box. We can establish this connection via various methods like WRQ Reflection, Putty, Citrix, Telnet, etc.

92. When we do testing on UNIX, there are some important and key things required. What are they?

• The Shell

• Processes and Jobs

• File System

• File Permissions

• Filters

• Shell Programming

93. How can you say that you have done good testing?

Good testing can be done.... But complete testing cannot be... Common factors in deciding good testing are

1) Test cases completed with certain percentage passed

2) Coverage of code/functionality/requirements reaches a specified point

3) Bug rate falls below a certain level

4) Beta or alpha testing period ends

94. What is the criterion for writing test cases?

A basic criterion for writing test cases is to understand the requirements thoroughly. Once the understanding for requirements is clear, we can start writing test cases.

Another criterion is your test case format should be ready.

We should document all our requirements properly and make sure that for each and every requirement there must be atleast one test case that is covered.

This gives us traceability for test case coverage against requirement.

95. What are the advantages of V-Model? Why is it used?

In V-module, main advantage is multistage of testing at time. We do the Verification and Validation of the product under development. This is a reason most companies are using V-model.

96. What is the difference between software testing and testing?

Testing the software is known as software testing i.e.,(Finding the bugs and improving the Quality of the

Application). Testing any other work except software i.e. just finding the mistakes in a document.

97. What is VSS? And in Security Testing, what do you mean by 1) Encryption 2) Authentication 3) Authorization 4) Firewall? Pls explain.

VSS stands for Visual source safe, it is one of the Configuration management tool by Microsoft Corporation.

Encryption: Encryption is the conversion of data into a form, called a cipher text that cannot be easily understood by unauthorized people.

Authentication: It is the process of establishing the claimed identity of an individual, a device, an object, a system, a component or a process; that claims to be.

Authorization: It is a process of granting access rights to an individual, a device, an object, a system, a component or a process over finite resources for a specific period of time.

98. Difference between functional testing and GUI functional testing.

GUI testing or UI testing is user interface testing. That is, testing how the application and the user interact. This includes how the application handles keyboard and mouse input and how it displays screen text, images, buttons, menus, dialog boxes, icons, toolbars and more.

Functional Testing is done with the intent to identify errors related to the functionality of the Application under test.

99. How to test an application?

Black box testing

Random testing

Functional testing

100. When exactly testing should be started?

After releasing the SRS document

101. Types of database testing queries?

Database testing

1. Microsoft sql query

2. Oracle

102. What is use case based test case design?

A black box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute user scenarios (a sequence of transactions in a dialogue between a user and the system with a tangible-clear definite-result).

103. Explain about configuration management?

Configuration management is to manage source files and other documents, such as multiple documents.

104. What are case sheets in manual testing?

Case sheets in manual testing are nothing but test cases documented.

105. What are the definitions for Stubs and Drivers?

Stubs are the dummy modules which are used in bottom up approach. For example if we want to test Module A (Main Module) for this we need to have B (Sub Module) as running we can create dummy module of B which is called as stub

Drivers are also dummy modules and are used in top down approach. In this case main module that is A is created as dummy module in order to test B (sub Module).

106. What is the difference between stress, volume and load testing?

Stress: Stressing the system at or beyond the limit

Volume: Apply more data than its capacity.

Load: Apply and increasing load to check response time

107. Difference between bug, error and defect?

Error - Error is the misunderstanding or mistake or misconception from the part of Software engineer

Defect - It is a mismatch found by Tester during Testing

Bug - It is the defect when reported to development team and when accepted by developer it is called as bug...

108. What is yellow box testing?

Yellow Box Testing is done to check the error messages.

109. What are the different techniques to write test cases?

To write test cases, techniques are:-

Equivalence class partitioning

Boundary value analysis.

110. Difference between boundary analysis and Equivalent partitioning?

In BVA, we concentrate on size of data i.e. range (min, max, min-1, max-1, min+1, max+1), where as in ECP, we concentrate on the type of data (valid, invalid).

111. What is test log?

To store the entire pass and fail information we use a record and that is called as test log.

112 What are the diff types of Equivalence class partitioning?

In equivalence partitioning, input data is analyzed and divided into equivalence classes which produce different output. So, we can consider Valid and Invalid inputs as two different classes.

For example, consider a very simple function for awarding grades to the students. This program follows this guideline to award grades

Marks 00 - 39 ------------ Grade D

Marks 40 - 59 ------------ Grade C

Marks 60 - 70 ------------ Grade B

Marks 71 - 100 ------------ Grade A

Based on the equivalence partitioning techniques, partitions for this program could be as follows

Marks between 0 to 39 - Valid Inputs

Marks between 40 to 59 - Valid Inputs

Marks between 60 to 70 - Valid Inputs

Marks between 71 to 100 - Valid Inputs

Marks less than 0 - Invalid Input

Marks more than 100 - Invalid Input.

113. While starting the Project it was planned to have 27 days for development and 4 days for testing. Test Cases were prepared fully while development was in progress. Later on due to schedule slippage, the development has taken 29days & thus only 2 days left for testing. In this scenario, how one should proceed with Testing?

Need to reduce Scope of the testing. Concentrate only on the major functionalities of the application.

114. Why would software tester like the spiral model better than others?

Spiral Model is mostly liked to use by Software Tester as in this model whole of the system is divided into small module where developers has to develop a small part of the software/product for which tester can perform the testing job with more concentration and effectiveness.

115. How to write the test case. Give a format?

Test Case Id:

Test Case Name:

Test Case Objective:

Test Condition/Setup:

Input data requirement/Steps

Expected Result.

116. What is a test plan?

A test plan is a road map of all testing activities to be followed by testers. It contains scope of the application, objective, both software and hardware resources required, time schedule, areas to be tested, areas not to be tested, risk factors etc.

117. How to write simple test cases. Pls explain with example?

Add Test case name or number, tester name, Executed date, source application required: mail before starting the following steps

Scenario: To check whether deleted mails from inbox are moved to Trash folder in Gmail

Steps to be followed:

1. Click on “Internet Explorer” icon on desktop

2. Type the following URL in address bar and click on “Go”

\"http://www.gmail.com/\">

3. Enter valid userid and valid password

4. Click on Go button

5. Verify Inbox has mails

6. Check the check box of any of the mails in inbox

7. Click on Delete button

8. Click on “Trash” folder at left side of the screen

9. Verify deleted mails from inbox are present in Trash folder.

118. What is consistency testing?

Finding and eliminating software errors remains to be one of the most time-consuming activities when developing software systems. Techniques that early in the design process can avoid or eliminate program errors will dramatically shorten the software development cycle and improve the quality of the software.

Software testing is today the primary tool used by software designers to eliminate errors and thus improve the quality of the software. However, no accepted systematic method exists today which can help the designer to construct efficient tests (a small set of inputs) or to evaluate the quality of the given test, i.e., a measure of how well the software has been tested.

Testing serves at least two purposes. One is to check the functionality, i.e., that the program behaves as the programmer is expecting. Another purpose is to check the robustness of the program, i.e., that it does not crash on extreme inputs. A program that is well-behaved (does not crash) for all inputs, although it might not compute the right result, is called a consistent program.

119. What is GUI Testing?

GUI Testing: graphical user interface testing to test look and feel ...just to check graphical things (ex:-...logo... image... font...).

120. What are the topics to be covered (learnt) from SQL for a test engineer?

Introduction about Database and sql, how to create a table, how to insert rows and column in it. Topics of interest would be how to insert data in the rows and columns, adding and deleting column and rows and about inner joins, equi joins outer joins and triggers.

130. When can we stop the testing?

When the bug rate falls to maximum extent or Coverage of all requirements and functionalities or

after completion of testing in customer environment.

131. What is V-Model process in developing an application in manual testing?

The development of an application in V model is same for both manual and automation testing processes. The process starts right from the beginning of

1) Getting the requirements from the client and preparation of BRS document by the project manager

2) Analyzing those requirements and make preparation of SRS document by the project manager.

3) Designing the HLD and LLD documents architectural designers

4) Coding by developers

5) Unit testing and Integration testing by developers

6) Black box testing and System testing by QA engineers

7) User Acceptance testing by client

8) Release by deployment engineers and maintenance by developers and test engineers.

132. Write some test cases for calculator?

1. It should give the proper outputs based on the operation

2. First it should have the 9 digit numbers

3. Whenever we click on a particular key, it should display that particular key

4 .It should be easily carried to anywhere

5. It should be run on battery or cell and not through power supply.

133. What is the difference between testing and Quality Assurance?

Testing is Validation...that is actually execution of test cases, scenarios on the application...while QA is the Verification process which helps deliver better software.

134. What is manual testing?

Manual Testing is a testing technique that requires human execution, operation, and input.

135. How should we need to approach database testing? Is there any Automation tool to do that?

Automation tools to approach database testing- win runner and QTP.

136. What is mean by STLC (Software testing life cycle)?

Software testing life cycle starts from the requirement analysis, Based on the requirements and functional Specifications, a Test Plan will be prepared. Using functional specs and Requirement specs Test scenarios will be prepared. Test cases will be prepared based on Test Scenarios, Reviewing those test cases, executing test cases, re test, regression test, Preparing bug and status reports and finally UAT.

137. When exactly the database testing is done?

When any changes that we do at front end correctly reflects the same at back end also and vice versa then the database testing is done.

138. What is traceability matrix?

Traceability matrix is the matrix which shows that requirements have covered or not up to the SRS.

139. How test manager manage testing from beginning to end? What are his/her roles and responsibilities in testing?

Following are the common responsibilities of the test engineer.

1. The test engineer should involve in training sessions to understand the complete project.

2 Involve in test planning along with the test lead to know the allocated work.

3. Prepare the test scenario.

140. What is the job profile of a software tester?

Job Profile of a Software Tester is to understand the requirement documents, Preparing Test scenarios, preparing test cases based on Scenarios and Requirement specs, reviewing those test cases, Executing test cases, Preparing Test Status reports and Bug status reports.

141. In manual testing, what is the first thing to be done when a project specification sheet is given in a company?

After receiving the project specification sheet, the CEO category people conduct kick-off meeting. After receiving proposal the project manager prepare PIN (project initiation note). If the CEO accepts the PIN then he concentrates on SDLC.

142. How can we do database testing?

To conduct database testing the test engineers must follow below process:

1) Verification of data entered by the users through application at back end.

2) Verification of database design

3) Verifying the data integrity

4) Verification of SQL scripts.

143. What is a peer review?

It’s a review process conducted among the team members.

It happens at several steps such as reviewing RTM, Test cases, Test Execution Log and Defect Reports etc.

144. Which model is used by most of the companies?

Verification and validation model i.e. V-MODEL.

145. What would you do when there is no requirement document available or have very poor document for testing?

We do exploratory testing (one method of Ad-hoc Testing).

This is performed by test engineers due to lack of Documentation. This is also calling as Artistic testing.

146. What development model should programmers and the test group use?

It depends on clients’ requirements and specifications.

147. When a test engineer knows that he has completed writing total test cases?

By using the Traceability Matrix.

148. What is Batch Testing?

Sequential execution of tests (instead of one test) is calling as batch testing.

149. What is VSS (Visual Source Safe) and what is its structure?

VSS stands for Visual Source Safe it is a version control tool used to maintain soft base in configuration repository for one project maintained and developed by developers to store different versions of same build with different name or number.

150. Whether networking knowledge is essential for a testing professional?

A little knowledge is required as the testers should maintain VSS (visual source safe).

151. If a developer says that the bug found by the tester is not a valid bug, then what the tester has to do?

Test engineer has to provide all the snapshots, Steps to re-create the bug and test ware data to the developer and he must be polite in dealing with the developer.

152. What is a cursory testing?

Cursory testing is nothing but sanity testing; it is performed whenever the application is functioning according to specifications. This level of testing is a subset of regression testing. It normally includes a set of core tests of basic GUI functionality to demonstrate connectivity to the database, application servers, printers, etc.

153. What is key process area?

Key Process Areas (KPA) is used to measure the CMM levels.

154. What is the role of bug tracking system?

The Bug tracking system is used to know the status of bugs that occurs during the test execution. The tools like mantis, test director, bugzilla are used for defect tracking.

155. What is a Gap Analysis?

Gap Analysis is used to find out the gap between what is implemented and what exactly customer expects (requires).

156. What is the Difference between Windows based Application and a Web based Client Application?

Windows Based Application 2 tier architecture and Web based application is the n-tier architecture.

157. What is regression suit?

It contains the list of test cases which needs to be executed in the regression testing, for the new build version (or) for the fixed defect (or) for the new functionality in our application.

158. In software testing, which document is first prepared. Test Strategy or Test Methodology?

Software Methodology.

159. What is PATCH and abbreviate it?

Patch is nothing but software which contains supported additional features OR may be the fix for bugs. This patch is loaded and verifies the new features and bug fixes.

160. How much interaction with users should testers have and why?

There should be interaction within client, as from time to time, Client can provide their requirements and feedback to the under development project and helps the tester understand the client inputs (actual data).

161. What is dynamic testing?

Testing the Application at Run-time.

162. What is severity and priority in manual testing?

Severity means the impact of the defect on the application build while executing the program. Severity may be Critical, High, Medium and Low, whereas Priority means how long (early) the defect should be rectified by developers. It may be p0, p1, p2 like that...

163. What is test data?

Test Data is the input data which we are using to execute test cases. It is not the original data; tester will prepare some dummy data similar to real time data.

164. What is feasibility matrix?

It means time, cost, work, acceptance needed for the proposed solutions.

165. How to write simple test cases for login page?

Enter valid id and valid pass word it should open expected page

Enter valid and invalid password it should show \" enter valid pass word\"

Enter invalid id and valid pass word it should show \" for got your user id\"

Enter invalid id and invalid pass word it should show\" please enter valid pass word\"

Leave user id blank and valid pass word it should show \"enter valid id\"

Enter valid id and pass word blank it should show \" enter valid pass word\"

Both of fields leave blank and click on Ok it should show \" forgot ur pass word\"

Apply BVA for both user id and pass word

Apply ECP for both user id and pass word

166. Explain about V-Model?

V-stands for verification and validation. This is an extension of SDLC along with SQA and SQC. The large scale organizations are able to maintain separate employees for development stages and testing stages. But the medium and small scale organizations are maintaining the separate testing team only for system testing stage. Because this stage is a bottleneck stage in s/w development process.

167. What is black box testing?

Black Box Testing: If a person performs testing only on the Functional part of an application without having structural knowledge then that method of testing known as Black Box Testing.

168. What is mean by Test Strategy? Is there any type?

Test Strategy is an organizational level term. That means how to test an application in a full fledged manner. It is totally based on company standards and procedures.

169. What is the difference between Deliverables and Release notes?

Release notes are provided for every new release of the build with fixed bugs. It contains answers to the questions like what are all the bugs fixed? And what are the pending bugs?

Deliverables are provided at the end of the testing. Test plan, test cases, defect reports, documented defects which are not fixed etc, come under deliverables.

170. What is the difference between priority and severity?

Priority indicates how early the bug is to be fixed and Severity means complexity in bug.

171. What is the difference between test strategy and test methodology?

TEST STRATEGY- conducting testing in planned manner.

TEST METHODOLOGY- rules followed to test.

172. What are Test Driver and Test Stub?

Test driver is a program that replaces a high level module (HLM) while performing the bottom up approach of incremental testing.Whereas test stub is a program that replaces a low level module (LLM) while performing the top down approach of incremental testing.

173. What is bottom-up integration testing?

All the modules are combined from lower lever hierarchy to higher lever hierarchy i.e. lower lever modules are combined and tested in isolation first then the next set of higher modules tested with previously tested the lower module.

174. What is BVT?

BVT is nothing but build verification Testing. It is also called as BTA (Build Acceptance Testing)

Build Verification test is a set of tests run on every new build (module) to verify that build is testable before it is released to test team for further testing. These test cases are core functionality test cases that ensure application is stable and can be tested thoroughly. Typically BVT process is automated. If BVT fails that build is again get assigned to developer for fix.

175. What is scenario? Tell me with a simple example?

Test scenarios is nothing but combination of test cases

Ex: If we take for a login window, in that we have user name and password and an Ok button. Enter valid username, valid password and then click on the Ok button. This is one scenario here to test.

176. What is testing process?

Testing is a process, in which defects are identified, isolated, subjected for rectification, and ensures that the product is defect free in order to produce a quality product in the end and hence customer satisfaction. There are six phases, first phase is requirement phase, which done by the business analyst and engagement manger, functional requirement is the output document of this phase and the second phase is analysis phase, here the possibility of the requirements, planning, technology selection, and requirement analysis will be done, and the outcome document is SRS, the third phase is designing phase, here are high level designing and low level designing is done, and the outcome document is TDD, fourth phase is coding phase, here the developers will develop the course following the TDD document and functional requirements, fifth phase is testing, where in we will trying to find the bugs to improve the quality of the application, and the sixth phase is delivery and maintenance phase.

177. Why do we need to write the test cases? What is main advantages of the writing the test cases?

We write Test case because from that we can know the Positive& Negative testing of an application.

178. What is volume testing?

Testing the application behavior with huge amounts of data.

179. When to stop testing? Is it correct that it is difficult to give answer because there are more points?

No, we can say the Answer.

1. Testing deadlines.

2. Test case completed with contain passed.

3. Bug rate falls below a certain level.

4. Test budget depleted.

180. What is Black box testing?

Testing an application without knowing in-depth knowledge about coding. Testing is based on the functionality of requirements.

181. Explain about sanity testing?

It is a testing to improve the confidence level of tester to test the major functionality of the application. To determine if new software’s functionality version is performing well enough to accept it for major testing effort, we do the sanity testing.

182. What is Thread Testing?

A testing technique used to test the business functionality or business logic of the AUT in an end-to-end manner, in much the same way a User or an operator might interact with the system during its normal use.

183. How many test cases can we write for a scenario?

We can’t say the exact maximum number. But we can write 1 positive test case and 1 negative test case at minimum.

184. What are the key challenges of testing?

To Find out or uncover bugs, which should not be notice by client side.

185. Tell me some typical bugs you encountered in your last assignment give some examples.

For this question my answer would be, if we are testing the web page and if we are clicking on a link, that link is not displaying the related web page. This is one bug and another one is that if links themselves are not working, then this is also one bug.

186. What is benchmark testing?

Benchmark testing is a normal part of the application development life cycle. It is a team effort that involves both application developers and database administrators (DBA’s), and should be performed against your application in order to determine current performance and improve it.

187. When should you begin a test plan?

After the preparation of SRS document by PM and PL.

188. What is the maximum possible value of reliability?

To estimate peak load, test engineers are performing stress test under customer expected configuration and more than customer expected load.

189. WHAT IS UCD?

UCD means USE CASE DOCUMENT; it is the diagrammatic representation of requirements given by BA.

190. Differentiate test strategy and test plan?

The document defines testing approach to be followed by corresponding testing team for that project. This is first doc in testing whereas test plan is static document and describes how to perform testing in an effective way.

191. Test cases for shirt button?

Verify color of button

Verify size of button

Verify holes size in button.

192. What do you mean by review? How many reviews are there in manual testing? Please explain those?

Review is verification process without EXECUTION

Static technique

Bug prevention technique

Ex: - peer review, walkthrough, inspection

TYPES

1. TECHNICAL REVIEW

2. MGMT REVIEW.

193. What is the difference between Verification & Validation?

Verification- It is to ensure that Software had correctly implemented a specific function. it is done before coding and it is a Quality Assurance process (process where the documents of the product to be tested are verified with the actual requirements of the Customer).

Validation-It is to ensure that Software has been built meets the requirements. It is don after coding & it is a Quality Control process (Process where the product to be tested is executed first and the expected behavior is compared with the actual behavior).

194. Who is QA Engineer?

Quality assurance engineer (QA) deals with prevention of defects in the product being developed. Usually this person is involved in verification.

195. What is test strategy?

Test strategy is a state in to that the overall approach to testing and what level of testing to be applied, methods, technique, tools to be used.

196. In an application if I enter delete button it should give an error message "Are you sure u want to delete?" but the application gives msg as "Are you sure?” is this a bug? And if it is a bug, how do you rate severity?

Firstly, we have to make sure what the actual error message should be from the specifications document. If it is not clearly mentioned, then the bug to be reported should have a severity as "low" with suggestion attached. If it is clearly mentioned in the specifications document, then its severity should be "medium" with reference attached.

197. What we do when the Requirements are continuously changed?

When ever the requirements are continuously changing, we will do agile testing.

198. What is acceptance testing?

Final testing based on specifications of the end-user or customer, or based on use by end-users/customers over some limited period of time.

199. What is system testing?

System testing is testing the whole application or testing the application against SRS or integration testing in LARGE.

200. Different templates used in testing?

Different templates used in testing are test case document template, defect profile document, traceability matrix template.

201. What is test case? How a test case is written. Explain with an example.

It is an input condition with expected result to a small work unit.

Based on Business requirements and Functional requirements test case is written.

For ex: A pen

1. To check whether pen is writing properly or not.

2. To check whether ink is there in the refill.

3. Verify pen cap is there or not. Etc.

202. What is synchronization?

Data sync from one application to another, database to another database.

203. What is memory leakage?

A memory leak is a particular kind of unintentional memory consumption by a computer program where the program fails to release memory when no longer needed.

204. What are green box, red box, yellow box & gray box testing?

Green box testing: - There are no definitions for green box testing in s/w testing.

Red box testing:-There are 2 definitions in use

1) User acceptance testing is red box testing

2) Testing h/w or n/w components (protocols)

Yellow box testing:-Checking against the warning messages. Whether the system is properly throwing the warning messages or not?

Gray box testing:-A combination of black box testing and white box testing methodologies.

205. Consider that you have 2 more days to reach the dead line, and already you have done 3 cycles of testing. How do you handle the situation?

If we have got some bugs after conducting final round of testing, then we will use regression testing.

206. What is the difference between defect and bug?

Whenever we are executing test cases if we found any mismatch between the expected value and actual value that is known as defect. If the defect is accepted by the developers then that is known as a bug.

207. What is an impact testing?

In Software Testing: - Testing the impacts caused by the new functionality or new fixes this nothing but regression or retesting.

In material testing: - Impact testing is designed to measure the performance of an object under high-rate loading.

In general testing the expected impacted areas after some action of change.

208. What is Test summary report?

Test summary is overall testing status like:

Number of open defects

Number of closed

Number of deferred etc.

209. What is the difference between sdlc and stlc?

SDLC--means software development life cycle, which explains about the whole process for a project right from starting to ending.

STLC--means software test life cycle, which explains about the whole testing process.

210. Differentiate test bed and test environment?

Test bed is the list of test cases

Test environment is the required s/w & h/w.

211. What is Monkey Testing?

Testing a system or an Application on the fly, i.e. just few tests here and there to ensure the system or an application does not crash out.

212. Diff between functional testing and GUI functional testing?

GUI testing or UI testing is user interface testing. That is, testing how the application and the user interact. This includes how the application handles keyboard and mouse input and how it displays screen text, images, buttons, menus, dialog boxes, icons, toolbars and more.

Functional Testing is done with the intent to identify errors related to the functionality of the Application under test.

213. Consider that u have 2 more days to reach the dead line, already u have did 3 cycle of testing. How do you handle the situation if you have got some bugs after conducting final round of testing?

We will use regression testing.

214. Differentiate test strategy and test plan?

The test strategy document defines testing approach to be followed by corresponding testing team for that project. This is the first document in testing whereas test plan is static document which describes how to perform testing in an effective way.

215. What is Boundary Value Analysis?

BVA is similar to Equivalence Partitioning but focuses on “corner cases” or values that are usually out of range as defined by the specification. This means that if a function expects all values in range of negative 100 to positive 1000, test inputs would include negative 101 and positive 1001.

216. Explain about the test scenarios. How can we write the scenarios?

Test Scenarios is nothing but combination of test cases.

ex: if you take for a login window in that we have user name and password click on ok button this is one scenario here three

Test cases are covered that’s what its combination of test cases

In simple we can say that "what r the areas to be tested" for ex: take your room for test, first you have to plan what are the ones we have to test ----Fan, Bulb, AC, TV, Table etc.

Ex2: for login window, we have to write Test Specification for [Submit] and [cancel] button -- based on this we will write Test Case using different methods like BVA, ECP etc.

4.       References                                                                                                                                

i)                    Software Testing by Ron Patten

ii)                   Testing Computer Software by Cem Kaner, Jack Falk and Hung Quoc Nguyen

iii)                 Extracts from the software testing section in the website https://forums.sureshkumar.net

iv)                 Wipro Training Material

v)                  Google