Software Testing

Life Cycle
(STLC)

Questions and Answers

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Interview Questions and Answers

Q-1. What is a Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC)?

Ans:- Software testing life cycle refers to all the activities performed during testing of a software
product.

Q.2. What are the phases of STLC?

Ans:- The phases include-

 Requirement analyses.
 Test planning -
 Test Design and development.
 Test environment setup
 Test execution
 Test closure and reporting

Q.3. What activities are performed in each phase of STLC?

 Requirement analyses and validation - In this phase the requirements documents are
analyzed and validated and scope of testing is defined.
 Test planning - In this phase test plan strategy is defined, estimation of test effort is defined
along with automation strategy and tool selection is done.
 Test Design and analysis - In this phase test cases are designed, test data is prepared and
automation scripts are implemented.
 Test environment setup - A test environment closely simulating the real world environment
is prepared.
 Test execution - The test cases are prepared, bugs are reported and retested once resolved.
 Test closure and reporting - A test closure report is prepared having the final test results
summary, learning’s and test metrics.

Q.4. What are the different types of testing?

Ans:- Testing can broadly be defined into two types-

 Functional testing - Functional testing involves validating the functional specifications of the
system.
 Non Functional testing - Non functional testing includes testing the non-functional
requirements of the system like performance, security, scalability, portability, endurance etc.

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Q.5. What is Test Scenario?

Ans-A1- Test Scenario is overview of any functionality of software application which is under testing.

A2- A test scenario is derived from a use case. It is used for end end to end testing of a feature of an
application. A single test scenario can cater multiple test cases. The scenario testing is particularly
useful when there is time constraint while testing

Q.6. What is Test Case?

Ans. A1- Test case is detail description of any functionality how to test it, Test case involved many
details like test case title, prerequisites, steps, test data, expected result, actual result, status etc

A2- A test case is used to test the conformance of an application with its requirement specifications. It
is a set of conditions with pre-requisites, input values and expected results in a documented form.

Q.7 What is Test Execution?

Ans:- A1- To perform actual testing as per the test steps.

A2- In test Execution we simply give input of test data to system and check the final outcome of
software application.

Q.8 What is Test Closure?

Ans:-A1- Test Closure is a document that gives a summary of all the tests conducted during the
software development life cycle, it also gives a detailed analysis of the bugs Reported and closed.

A2- Test Closure is final stage of STLC where we will make all details documentations which are
required submit to client at time of software delivery. Such as test report, defect report, test cases
summary, RTM details, release note.

Q.9.What are the list of test closure documents?

Ans:- It includes:-
 test case documents,
 test plan, test strategy,
 Release note
 test scripts,
 test data,
 traceability matrix, and
 test results and reports like test closure report.

Q.10. What is a Build?

Ans:-It is a number/ identity given to Installable software that is given to testing team by the
development team

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Q.11 What is release?

Ans:- It is a number/ identity given to Installable software that is handed over to customer/client by
the testing team (or sometime directly by development team)

Q.12. What is deployment?

Ans:- Deployment is the mechanism through which applications, modules, updates, and patches are
delivered from developers to end user/ client/customer.

Q.13. What is the difference between Testing and debugging?

Ans.

 Testing means to check the behavior of application whether it is expected or not. And Testing
can be done without any internal knowledge of software architecture.

 Its done by tester

 Debugging means to find out main cause of defect and debugging requires Internal knowledge
of the software architecture and coding.

 Its done by developer.

Q.14. When actual testing will started?

Ans:- Testing includes many activities in each phase of the development life cycle as requirement
verification, verify design, create test plan, etc. So software testing activity should be started as soon as
possible (After requirement baseling) in the development life cycle.

Q.15. Which tools you are using to write an review test cases?

Ans:- Generally in our company we preferred to write down test cases in excel sheet, because its very
easy and user-friendly. After completion of review, we will add that test cases in TestLink for future
tracking purpose.

TestLink
Version:-1.9.13 (Strombringer)

Q.16. What are different attribute of test cases?

Ans. A test case can have following attributes-

1. TestCaseId - A unique identifier of the test case.

2. Test Summary - One-liner summary of the test case.
3. Description - Detailed description of the test case.
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 4. Prerequisite or pre-condition - A set of prerequisites that must be followed before executing
the test steps.
5. Test Steps - Detailed steps for performing the test case.
6. Expected result - The expected result in order to pass the test.
7. Actual result - The actual result after executing the test steps.
8. Test Result - Pass/Fail status of the test execution.
9. Automation Status - Identifier of automation - whether the application is automated or not.
10. Date - The test execution date.
11. Executed by - Name of the person executing the test case.

Q.17. What is the purpose of the test closure phase?

Ans:- It shown entire testing process with all statistics and reports

Q.18. What is the code freeze?

And:- Code freeze means Finalization of code and no more further changes will be happens in code.

Q.19. How would you define that testing is sufficient and it’s time to enter the Test Closure
phase? Or When we should stop testing?

Testing can be stopped when one or more of the following conditions are met-

1. After test case execution - Testing phase can be stopped when one complete cycle of test cases
is executed after the last known bug fix with agreed upon value of pass-percentage.
2. Once the testing deadline is met - Testing can be stopped after deadlines get met with no high
priority issues left in system.
3. Based on Mean Time Between failure (MTBF)- MTBF is the time interval between two inherent
failures. Based on stakeholders decisions, if the MTBF is quite large one can stop the testing
phase.
4. Based on code coverage value - Testing phase can be stopped when the automated code
coverage reaches a specific threshold value with sufficient pass-percentage and no critical bug.

Q.20. At which phase is the test environment prepared?

Ans:- before start execution, we need to setup the environment for testing.

Q.21 What is your (QA/Tester) basic roles and responsibility?

Ans:- Roles and responsibility are as follows:-

 Understanding & analyzing Test Requirements.

 Preparation of Test Plan Documentation (if have 3+ years exp).
 Prepare Test Scenarios for individual module.
 Writing & review the Test Cases as per requirements.
 Test cases execution.
 Defect creation, Defect verification and QA task management.
 Weekly Test status reporting.
 Continuous Communication with the team & client.

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Q. 22 What is different levels of testing?

Ans. Testing can be performed at different levels during the development process. Performing testing
activities at multiple levels help in early identification of bugs. The different levels of testing are -

1. Unit Testing
2. Integration Testing
3. System Testing
4. Acceptance Testing

Q.23. What are different testing methods?

 Black box testing - In black box testing, the tester need not have any knowledge of the internal
architecture or implementation of the system. The tester interact with the system through the
interface providing input and validating the received output.
 White box testing - In white box testing, the tester analyses the internal architecture of the
system as well as the quality of source code on different parameters like code optimization,
code coverage, code reusability etc.
 Gray box testing - In gray box testing, the tester has partial access to the internal architecture
of the system e.g. the tester may have access to the design documents or database structure.
This information helps tester to test the application better.

Q.24. How to right effective test cases?

Ans:- Effective test cases has considered

 Test cases should be simple to understand which helps to review and retest.
 Test cases should focus on end user requirements.
 Test cases should ability to find defects.
 Test cases should contain proper steps and test data.
 Test cases should be Re-usable
 Test cases should express about expected and actual results.

Q.25. What is Test Planning?

Ans:- A test plan is a formal document describing the scope of testing, the approach to be used,
resources required and time estimate of carrying out the testing process. It is derived from the
requirement documents(Software Requirement Specifications).

Q.26. Mention what are the types of documents in QA?

The types of documents in QA are

Requirement Document
Test Metrics
Test cases and Test plan
Task distribution flow chart
Transaction Mix
User profiles
Test log
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User profiles
Test incident report
Test summary report

Q.27. Explain what should your QA documents include?

QA testing document should include

List the number of defects detected as per severity level
Explain each requirement or business function in detail
Inspection reports
Configurations
Test plans and test cases
Bug reports
User manuals
Prepare separate reports for managers and users