ISTQB Software Testing Quiz 10

1. Which of the following are potential benefits of adding tools to the test process?

i) Reduction of repetitive testing procedures.

ii) Ability to hire testers with fewer technical skills.

iii) Ability to get an objective assessment of progress.

iv) Greater consistency in testing procedures.

Ii, iii & iv

I, iii & iv

I, ii & iii

I, ii & iv

Clearly a testing certification question would never contain "ability to hire testers with fewer technical skills" as a correct answer, so this eliminates A, C & D, leaving B as the answer. Note that, in questions like these, you can quickly get to the right answer by getting rid of the wrong ones. This is much faster than working through each possible answer. So always look for the ridiculous statement and strike out all the answers that contain it.

Explanation

Clearly a testing certification question would never contain "ability to hire testers with fewer technical skills" as a correct answer, so this eliminates A, C & D, leaving B as the answer. Note that, in questions like these, you can quickly get to the right answer by getting rid of the wrong ones. This is much faster than working through each possible answer. So always look for the ridiculous statement and strike out all the answers that contain it.

2. Which of the following statements describes a key principle of software testing?

Automated tests allow better statements of confidence about the quality of software products.

For a software system, it is normally impossible to test all the input and output combinations.

Exhaustive software testing is, with enough effort and tool support, feasible for all software.

The purpose of software testing is demonstrating the absence of defects in software products.

This should be obvious, even if you can't remember the seven principles. A is untrue, and C & D are clearly ridiculous.

Explanation

This should be obvious, even if you can't remember the seven principles. A is untrue, and C & D are clearly ridiculous.

3. Which of the following are good candidates for manual static testing?

Requirement specifications, test plan, code, memory leaks.

Requirement specifications, test cases, user guides.

Requirement specifications, user guides, performance.

Requirement specifications, website, code, use cases.

We can't do static testing on memory leaks or performance (these require dynamic testing). And we wouldn't choose to do it for website testing (far better to do manual dynamic testing). So this leaves B as the answer.

Explanation

We can't do static testing on memory leaks or performance (these require dynamic testing). And we wouldn't choose to do it for website testing (far better to do manual dynamic testing). So this leaves B as the answer.

4. Which of the following statements contains a valuable objective for a test team?

Prove that the remaining defects will not cause any additional failures.

Run all of the tests that are defined for the test object as quickly as possible.

Prove that all faults have been identified through thorough testing.

Cause as many failures as possible so that faults can be identified and corrected.

As the saying goes, "failure is our business (and business is good)". We have no time for A, we only report defects and failures. We don't rush through our tests, because this can lead to things being missed, inadequate incident reports, etc. We can't prove that all faults have been identified (and this would violate Testing Principle 1 - Testing shows the presence of defects). So the answer is D.

Explanation

As the saying goes, "failure is our business (and business is good)". We have no time for A, we only report defects and failures. We don't rush through our tests, because this can lead to things being missed, inadequate incident reports, etc. We can't prove that all faults have been identified (and this would violate Testing Principle 1 - Testing shows the presence of defects). So the answer is D.

5. Which of the following is a valid objective of an incident report?

Prove that the tester is contributing to the quality of the system.

Provides test management ideas for test process improvement.

Gives a statistical way to determine which modules to redesign.

Provides developers a way to critique their individual work processes.

Only B & C sound like "sensible" answers. But we eliminate C because you can't base statistics on an incident report (you could only obtain statistics by extracting data from many incident reports). So the answer is B.

Explanation

Only B & C sound like "sensible" answers. But we eliminate C because you can't base statistics on an incident report (you could only obtain statistics by extracting data from many incident reports). So the answer is B.

6. During testing a defect was found in a module, which caused the system to crash when the network became disconnected while the system was receiving data from a remote server.

The defect was fixed by making changes to the module so it checked network connectivity before and during data transfers.

The existing test cases covered 100% of the statements in the module. To verify the fix and ensure more extensive coverage, new tests were designed and added to the test suite.

What types of testing are mentioned above?

i) Functional testing
ii) Structural testing
iii) Confirmation testing
iv) Performance testing

I, iii & iv

I & iii

Ii & iv

I, ii & iii

Functional testing would have found the intial problem (i.e. the system suddenly crashes). Structural testing (or white box testing) would have been used to look inside the system and precisely identify the cause (i.e. the network becoming disconnected). Note that this would probably have been done by the developers while investigating the fault. Confirmation testing relates to the "new tests", which would check that the fault has been fixed. There is no mention of performance testing.

Explanation

Functional testing would have found the intial problem (i.e. the system suddenly crashes). Structural testing (or white box testing) would have been used to look inside the system and precisely identify the cause (i.e. the network becoming disconnected). Note that this would probably have been done by the developers while investigating the fault. Confirmation testing relates to the "new tests", which would check that the fault has been fixed. There is no mention of performance testing.