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Software Quality Engineer Certification

Study Guide

1. According to Crosby, it is less costly to

a. let the customer find the defects
b. detect defects than to prevent them
c. prevent defects than to detect them
d. ignore minor defects

2. Which of the following is LEAST likely to be used during software maintenance?

a. Software project management plan
b. Customer support hot line
c. Software problem reports
d. Change control board

3. An effective software development environment consists of tools that

a. are freestanding and free from access by other tools
b. have different user interfaces for each tool depending on the development phase supported by each tool
c. allow maximum flexibility while maintaining security and traceability
d. are integrated, linked to other tools, and have common user interfaces

4. Which of the following reviews are required in order to ensure proper tracking of software between phases of a project?
I. Product feasibility
II. Software requirements
III. Software design
IV. Acceptance test
a. I and II only
b. II and III only
c. I, II and III only
d. II, III, and IV only

5. A software firm has just signed a contract to deliver an inventory tracking/on-line transaction system for use by five hundred entry clerks in the
contract. The client has demanded a schedule of rigorous checkpoints but the requirements for the project are poorly defined. Which of the
following would be most suitable as a developmental model?
a. Spiral
b. Top-down
c. Rapid Prototyping
d. Waterfall

6. What happens to the relative cost of fixing software errors from the requirements phase through the test phase?
a. It decreases linearly.
b. It remains fairly constant.
c. It increases linearly.
d. It increases exponentially.

7. Which of the following is NOT an accepted code inspection technique?

a. Domain analysis
b. Item-by-item paraphrasing
c. Mental code execution
d. Consistency analysis

8. The defect density for a computer program is best defined as the

a. ratio of failure reports received per unit of time

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b. ratio of discovered errors per size of code

c. number of modifications made per size of code
d. number of failures reported against the code

9. When a company evaluates its own performance, it is conducting what type of audit?
a. First-party
b. Second-party
c. Third-party
d. Extrinsic

10. When an audit team concludes a finding demonstrates a breakdown of the quality management system, the finding should be documented as
a. a minor non-conformance.
b. a major non-conformance.
c. a deficiency.
d. an observation.

11. The primary task of the Change Control Board (CCB) is to

a. define change procedures
b. approve and/or disapprove changes to software products
c. evaluate cost and schedule impact of changes
d. authorize personnel to implement change

12. A functional prototype of an interactive data modeling application has been built. Which of the following types of testing would be most appropriate
to conduct on the prototype?
a. Usability
b. Reliability
c. Stress
d. Regression

13. A data entry system consists of an input terminal and a host system. The 8-hour reliability of the terminal is 0.98 and the 8-hour reliability of the
host is 0.95. What is the 8-hour reliability of the system?
a. 0.931
b. 0.965
c. 0.980
d. 0.950

14. Based on the table below, which of the following represents the total number of defect escapes from the coding phase?

Number of Defects Number of Defects

Phase Introduction Found & Removed
Requirements 12 9
Design 25 16
Code 47 42

a. 5
b. 9
c. 12
d. 17

15. Which of the following are considered detection costs?

I. Code walk-throughs
II. Software reliability modeling
III. Software testing

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IV. Physical configuration audits

a. I and II only
b. II and III only
c. I, II, and IV only
d. I, III, and IV only

16. Software reliability is normally defined in terms of

a. the probability of failure free operation.
b. the defect density of the software product.
c. the operational profile of the system.
d. mean time to repair a defect.

17. Which of the following is the cyclomatic complexity of the pseudo code below?
Psuedo code:
do while records remain
read record;
if record field # 1 = 0
then process record; store in buffer;
increment counter; else store in file.
reset counter; end if end do
a. 3
b. 4
c. 6
d. 11

18. Use cases and noun list are primarily associated with which of the following requirements and analysis methodologies?
a. Information engineering
b. Object-oriented analysis
c. Structured analysis
d. Functional analysis

19. According to IEEE standards, which of the following software libraries should be considered for configuration management purposes?
a. Production and test
b. Development and design
c. Production, development, and design
d. Production, development, and test

20. On the basis of the diagram below, which of the following is true?

a. Version 1.1 is a predecessor of Versions 1.2.1 and 2.2.

b. Version 3.0 automatically includes changes introduced in Version 2.2.
c. Version 3.0 requires a merging of changes introduced in Version 1.2.
d. Version 2.2 is a descendant of Version 1.2.1.

21. The spikes in the following chart represent increases in software defects.

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The initial high defect rate is most likely a result of which of the following?
I. Accelerated aging
II. New and changed code
III. New users
a. I only
b. II only
c. III only
d. II and III only

22. Which of the following is an effective method for making eye contact during a presentation?
a. Look at each audience member for an equal amount of time.
b. Scan all members of the audience without pausing.
c. Focus on individual audience members for a few seconds each or until facial expressions clue you to move on.
d. d. Utilize overheads instead of handouts in order to force audience members to look to the front of the room.

23. A valid software quality goal would be to

a. decrease the rate of defects found in 1 year
b. increase the rate of defect removal to 90% in 1 year
c. implement quality control by Nov. 1
d. improve quality within 1 year

24. In searching for opportunities to reduce the overall development cycle time for a new project, a project manager should look at which of the
following activities first?
a. Integration testing
b. Coding
c. User interface testing
d. Requirements definition

ANSWERS
1. C 6. D 11. B 16. A 21. D
2. A 7. A 12. A 17. A 22. C
3. D 8. B 13. A 18. B 23. B
4. D 9. A 14. D 19. D 24. D
5. C 10. B 15. D 20. A

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