SOFTWARE ENGINEERING QUESTION BANK WITH ANSWERS

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
TWO MARKS
1. What is software engineering?
Software engineering is a discipline in which theories, methods and tools are applied to
develop professional software.

2. What is Software ?
Software is nothing but a collection of computer programs that are related documents
that are indented to provide desired features,functionalities and better performance.

3. What are the characteristics of the software?
Software is engineered,not manufactured.
Software does not wear out.
Most software is custom built rather than being assembled from components.

4. What are the various categories of software?
System software
Application software
Engineering/Scientific software
Embedded software
Web Applications
Artificial Intelligence software

5. What are the challenges in software?
Copying with legacy systems.
Heterogeneity challenge
Delivery times challenge

6. Define software process.
Software process is defined as the structured set of activities that are required to
develop the software system.

7. What are the fundamental activities of a software process?
Specification
Design and implementation
Validation
Evolution

8. What are the umbrella activities of a software process?
Software project tracking and control.
Risk management.
Software Quality Assurance.
Formal Technical Reviews.
Software Configuration Management.
Work product preparation and production.
Reusability management.
Measurement.

9. What are the merits of incremental model?
i. The incremental model can be adopted when tere are less number of
people involved in the project.
ii. Technical risks can be managed with each increment.
iii. For a very small time span,at least core product can be delivered to the
customer.

10. List the task regions in the Spiral model.
Customer communication In this region it is suggested to establish customer
communication.
Planning All planning activities are carried out in order to define resources timeline
and other project related activities.
Risk analysis The tasks required to calculate technical and management risks.
Engineering In this the task region,tasks required to build one or more
representations of applications are carried out.
Construct and release All the necessary tasks required to construct,test,install the
applications are conducted.
Customer evaluation Customers feedback is obtained and based on the customer
evaluation required tasks are performed and implemented at installation stage.

11. What are the drawbacks of spiral model?
i. It is based on customer communication. If the communication is not proper then the
software product that gets developed will not be the up to the mark.
ii. It demands considerable risk assessment. If the risk assessment is done properly
then only the successful product can be obtained.

12. What is System Engineering?
System Engineering means designing, implementing, deploying and operating systems
which include hardware,software and people.

13. List the process maturity levels in SEIs CMM.
Level 1:Initial Few processes are defined and individual efforts are taken.
Level 2:Repeatable To track cost schedule and functionality basic project
management processes are established.
Level 3:Defined The process is standardized, documented and followed.
Level 4:Managed Both the software process and product are quantitatively
understood and controlled using detailed measures.
Level 5:Optimizing Establish mechanisms to plan and implement change.

14. What is an effector process?
The effector process is a process that verifies itself. The effector process exists in
certain criteria.

15. Define the computer based system.
The computer based system can be defined as a set or an arrangement of elements
that are organized to accomplish some predefined goal by processing information.

16. What does Verification represent?
Verification represents the set of activities that are carried out to confirm that the
software correctly implements the specific functionality.

17. What does Validation represent?
Validation represents the set of activities that ensure that the software that has been
built is satisfying the customer requirements.

18. What are the steps followed in testing?
i. Unit testing The individual components are tested in this type of testing.
ii. Module testing Related collection of independent components are tested.
iii. Sub-system testing This is a kind of integration testing.Various modules are
integrated into a subsystem and the whole subsystem is tested.
iv. System testing The whole system is tested in this system.
v. Acceptance testing This type of testing involves testing of the system with
customer data.If the system behaves as per customer need then it is accepted.

19. What is the use of CMM?
Capability Maturity Model is used in assessing how well an organisations processes
allow to complete and manage new software projects.

20. Name the Evolutionary process Models.
i. Incremental model
ii. Spiral model
iii. WIN-WIN spiral model
iv. Concurrent Development

21. What is requirement engineering?
Requirement engineering is the process of establishing the services that the customer
requires from the system and the constraints under which it operates and is developed.

22. What are the various types of traceability in software engineering?
i. Source traceability These are basically the links from requirement to stakeholders
who propose these requirements.
ii. Requirements traceability These are links between dependant requirements.
iii. Design traceability These are links from requirements to design.

23. Define software prototyping.
Software prototyping is defined as a rapid software development for validating the
requirements.

24. What are the benefits of prototyping?
i. Prototype serves as a basis for deriving system specification.
ii. Design quality can be improved.
iii. System can be maintained easily.
iv. Development efforts may get reduced.
v. System usability can be improved.

25. What are the prototyping approaches in software process?
i. Evolutionary prototyping In this approach of system development, the initial
prototype is prepared and it is then refined through number of stages to final stage.
ii. Throw-away prototyping Using this approach a rough practical implementation of
the system is produced. The requirement problems can be identified from this
implementation. It is then discarded. System is then developed using some different
engineering paradigm.