Testing General

1. What is 'Software Quality Assurance'?

Answer: Software QA involves the entire software development
PROCESS - monitoring and improving the process, making sure that
any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed, and
ensuring that problems are found and dealt with. It is oriented to
'prevention'.
2. What is verification? Validation?
Answer: 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. Validation typically involves actual testing and
takes place after verifications are completed.
3. What are 5 common problems in the software development
process?
Answer:
• Poor requirements - if requirements are unclear,
incomplete, too general, and not testable, there will be
problems.
• Unrealistic schedule - if too much work is crammed in too
little time, problems are inevitable.
• Inadequate testing - no one will know whether or not the
program is any good until the customer complains or
systems crash.
• Requests to pile on new features after development is
underway; extremely common.
• Miscommunication - if developers don't know what's
needed or customer's have erroneous expectations,
problems are guaranteed.
4. What is software 'quality'?
Answer: Quality software is reasonably bug-free, delivered on time
and within budget, meets requirements and/or expectations, and is
maintainable.
5. What makes a good Software Test engineer?
Answer: A good test engineer has a 'test to break' attitude, an
ability to take the point of view of the customer, a strong desire for
quality, intuitive and an attention to detail.
6. What's a 'test plan'?
Answer: A software project test plan is a document that describes
the objectives, scope, approach, of a software testing effort. The
completed document will help people outside the test group
understand the 'why' and 'how' of product validation.
7. What are the components of a test plan?
 Answer: objective, scope, entrance criteria, exit criteria, features to
be tested, features not to be tested, approach, item pass fail
criteria, Suspension Criteria and Resumption Requirements, Test
Deliverables, Environmental Needs, Staffing and Training Needs,
Schedule, risk analysis, approval.
8. What is 'configuration management'?
Answer: CCB and version control of test plan.

9. What if the software is so buggy it can't really be tested at all?

Answer: The build must pass the build acceptance testing, which is
done by quickly going thru the major functionality testing. Log a
problem with high severity. Since this type of problem can severely
affect schedules, and indicates deeper problems in the software
development process (such as insufficient unit testing or insufficient
integration testing, poor design, improper build or release
procedures, etc.) managers should be notified, and provided with
some documentation as evidence of the problem.
10. How can it be known when to stop testing?
Answer: Zero ship issues, Zero assigned/answered Problem,
Complete final regression, complete SnS testing and user
documentation is ready.
11. What if there isn't enough time for thorough testing?
Answer: First try to pull more resources from other project. If not
possible use risk analysis to determine where testing should be
focused.
• Which functionality is most important to the project's
intended purpose?
• Which functionality is most visible to the user?
• Which functionality has the largest safety impact?
• Which functionality has the largest financial impact on
users?
• What do the developers think are the highest-risk aspects
of the application?
• Which aspects of similar/related previous projects caused
problems?
12. How can World Wide Web sites be tested?
Answer: Web sites are essentially client/server applications - with web
servers and 'browser' clients. Consideration should be given to the
interactions between html pages, TCP/IP communications, Internet
connections, firewalls, applications that run in web pages (such as
applets, javascript, plug-in applications), and applications that run on
the server side (such as cgi scripts, database interfaces, logging
applications, dynamic page generators, asp, etc.). Additionally, there
are a wide variety of servers and browsers, various versions of each,
small but sometimes significant differences between them, variations
in connection speeds, rapidly changing technologies, and multiple
standards and protocols. The end result is that testing for web sites
can become a major ongoing effort. Other considerations might
include:
• What are the expected loads on the server (e.g., number
of hits per unit time?), and what kind of performance is
required under such loads (such as web server response
time, database query response times). What kinds of tools
will be needed for performance testing (such as web load
testing tools, other tools already in house that can be
adapted, web robot downloading tools, etc.)?
• Pages should be 3-5 screens max unless content is tightly
focused on a single topic. If larger, provide internal links
within the page.

• The page layouts and design elements should be

consistent throughout a site, so that it's clear to the user
that they're still within a site.

• Pages should be as browser-independent as possible, or

pages should be provided or generated based on the
browser-type.

• All pages should have links external to the page; there

should be no dead-end pages.
13. What is END-TO-END Testing?
Answer: You do these tests either in System Testing OR User
Acceptance testing (UAT) Business (Business Analyst are most
interested in this type of tests)
End-to-End testing is a generic word. It means that we are testing
from one end to the other end of the application to test a particular
functionality from the user perspective. For Ex: If you use the
application to make a payment to Mr. XXX, using the web, you are
not just interested in getting a "Successfully paid to Mr. XXX"
message on the web page, but you need to ensure that the
payment did reach Mr. XXX after creating an entry in the local
database and then update all relevant databases and indeed update
the balance after payment. (One End -to the- other End)

In other words, in end-To-End test, we have to make sure that the

entire functional path is exercised so that the software path for this
function is tested from this end to the other end, internally.
 (Testing the Functionality of the requirements from the perspective
of the user using the system and performing a particular task)

14. What is exploratory testing?

Answer: exploratory testing is simultaneous learning, test plan and
execution. Usually done by exp testers. Done whenever we have
vague requirements about the product and time constraints
15. What types of testing does non-functional testing?
Answer: Non-functional testing: This testing is used to test the
other quality factors of our build other than the usability testing and
functionality testing. This testing includes 7 types of testings: 1)
Compatibility testing2) Configuration testing3) Load testing4)
Stress testing5) Storage testing6) Data-volume testing7)
Installation testing
16. What is the Test we are going to do when a New Build is come
to test environment?
Answer: Generic Sequence: 1. Run Smoke Test Plan, 2. Execute
Functional Test Plan (If planned), 3. Verify Bug Fixes, 4. Execute
Regression Test Plan (applicable to build under test, if planned)
Based on above executions decide (probably test lead/QA manager)
whether this build can be accepted
17. What are QA and QC? Explain Briefly.
Answer: QA people involved in entire software development life
cycle, they create and enforce some standards and methods to be
followed to develop the software. They are the people who were
preventing the bugs. QC means testing.
18. What is Test Metrics and how to calculate the Test Metrics?
Answer: Test matrices are used either for test status or for test
process improvement.
19. What are some of the typical bugs you encountered in your last
assignment? Db crash problem.
20. Describe components of a typical test plan?
Answer: Actually test plan describes what to test, how to test, when
to test, & who test.
21. How should you learn about problems discovered in the field,
and what should you learn from those problems?
Answer: learn about the scenario in which the problem occurred.
check your test plans/test design/test cases for the scenarion1. You
donot have that scenario. Its an escape. Analyze the scenario
where you slipped and make amendments in future releases
/versions2. You have it. Did not cover because of lack of time or
resources [hardware /software/others] ...Not your fault. Report to
Manager he will take care of it.
22.What is the most challenging situation you have faced in your
testing career? Give Pharos example.
23. How do you scope, organize, and execute a test project?
Answer: test plan will have everything.
24. What is the difference between error, bug, fault, failure etc?
Answer: My understanding is that:
An Error is an occurrence of human error that can happen during
documentation, software construction or testing (such as a
misunderstanding of system-use meaning an incorrect condition or
test script has been written)
A Fault is a manifestation of an error within the software delivery
that causes a deviance of software behavior from expected behavior
(ie a defect or a bug).
A Failure is a deviance of software from expected behavior post-live
implementation. The implication is that catching an error is more
cost effective than having failures.
25. What is the difference between beta and user acceptance
testing?
Answer: Acceptance testing: This is where you have to be careful
with book definitions. In practice, unless your testers are
incompetent, you will have finished all final testing based on
specifications during systems testing. Therefore, there is one
additional (key) reason for acceptance testing: to see if the code
actually works in the real world. I am not even referring to
acceptance of offshore code (that is a local systems testing task to
confirm that all functionality is properly implemented).
Beta testing: Something similar happens with beta testing. The
code, however, is developed for general use, and it should already
have passed all the normal test efforts. While technically "perfect"
the code may not strike a chord with potential customers. Beta
versions are an overt trial code offered to allow potential customers
to provide feedback prior to a broad distribution. Sometimes code
never sees commercial use as a result of beta feedback, and I
assure you that potential customers don't care about any
specifications either.
26. What are the types of Bottlenecks in Performance testing?
Answer: hardware bottleneck, process leak bottleneck, network
bottleneck, memory leak bottleneck
27. What is the difference between Load, Volume and stress
testing?
Answer: Volume testing: Testing where the system is subjected
to large volumes of data. Testing which confirms that any values
that may become large over time (such as accumulated counts,
logs, and data files), can be accommodated by the program and will
 not cause the program to stop working or degrade its operation in
any manner.

Stress testing: Testing conducted to evaluate a system or

component at or beyond the limits of its specified requirements.
[IEEE] Stress testing is a form of testing which is used to
determine the stability of a given system or entity. It involves
testing beyond normal operational capacity, often to a breaking
point, in order to observe the results.

Load Testing
Testing the load-bearing ability of a system. For example, verifying
that the system can handle the required number of users per time
period.

28. What are the severity levels?

Answer:
1. Fatal error:(e.g.: Suppose u will open a IE Browser then browser
cannot be opened, The page cannot be displayed), it is also called
as Show Stopper Errors or 500 Internal servers problem.
2. Major error:(On the above example, the page can be opened, but
the contents cannot be displayed)
3. Minor error: Cosmetic errors such as spell check, alignment
problem, and etc.
4. Suggestion: At Last How the tester can contact to the developer
in a polite way.
29. What is the difference between Client Server Testing and Web
Testing?
Answer: mainly differ in security and configuration.