NOORUL ISLAM COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, KUMARACOIL

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

IT1008 SOFTWARE TESTING

VIII SEMESTER

2 MARKS

Prepared by
T.V. Sindia,
Lecturer / IT
 Unit I
Part A
1. What is testing?
Testing is generally described as a group of procedures carried out to evaluate
some aspect of a piece of software.
It can be described as a process used for revealing defects in software, and for
establishing that the software has attained a specified degree of quality with respect to the
selected attributes.

2. What is TMM?
TMM – Testing Maturity Model. It was developed at the Illinois Institute of
Technology to address deficiencies in testing issues.

3. What is verification?
It is the process of evaluating a software system or component to determine
whether the products of a given development phase satisfy the conditions imposed at the
start of that phase.

4. What is validation?
It is the process of evaluating a software system or component during or at the
end of the development cycle in order to determine whether it satisfies specified
requirements.

5. What is debugging?
Debugging or fault localization is different from testing. It is the process of
locating the fault or defect, repairing the code and retesting the code.

6. What is an error?
An error is a mistake, misconception or misunderstanding on the part of a
software developer.

7. What is a fault or defect?

A fault is introduced in the software as a result of an error. It is an anomaly in the
software that may cause it to behave incorrectly, and not according to its specifications.

8. What is a failure?
A failure is the inability of a software system or component to perform its
required functions within specified performance requirements.

9. What are test cases?

A test case is a test related item which contains a set of test inputs, execution
conditions and expected outputs.

10. What is a test?

A test is a group of related test cases or a group of related test cases and test
procedures.
11. What is a test set?
A group of related tests is called as a test set.

12. What is a test suite?

A group of related tests that are associated with a database and are usually run
together is called as a test suite.

13. What is test oracle?

Test oracle is a document or piece of software that allows testers to determine
whether a test has been passed or failed.

14. What is a test bed?

A test bed is an environment that contains all the hardware and software needed to
test a software component or a software system.

15. What are quality attributes?

These are characteristics that reflect quality. Using these we determine whether a
system, system component or process is of high quality.

16. What is a metric?

Metric is quantitative measure of the degree to which a system, system
component or process possesses a given attribute.

17. What is a quality metric? Give some eg.

A quality metric is a quantitative measurement of the degree to which an item
possesses a given quality attribute.
Eg. Correctness, usability, reliability, integrity, portability etc.

18. What is SQA?

SQA – Software Quality Assurance is a group of organization that has ties to
quality issues.

19. What is a review?

Review is a group meeting whose purpose is to evaluate a software artifact or a
set of software artifacts.

20. What are the sources of defects?

Lack of education, poor communication, oversight, transcription and immature
process are some of the sources of defects.

21. What are the four major classes of defects?

Requirement/Specification defects, design defects, code defects and testing
defects are the classes of defects.

22. Give some specific requirements defects.

Functional description defects, feature defects, feature interaction defects and
interface description defects are some of the requirements defects.
 23. What is a defect model?
A defect model can be described as a link between the error made and the
fault/defect in the software.

24. What is a defect repository?

A defect repository is to store defect information.

25. Who is a test specialist?

A test specialist is one whose education is based on the principles and processes
that constitute the software engineering discipline and whose specific focus is on the
areas of software testing.
Unit II
Part A

1. What is the use of TMM?

It acts as a learning tool or framework to learn about testing.

2. What is the duty of a smart tester?

It is the responsibility of the smart tester to design tests that reveal defects and
that can be used to evaluate the software performance, usability and reliability.

3. What are the advantages of effective test cases?

 Greater probability of detecting defects
 A more efficient use of organizational resources
 Higher probability of test reuse
 Closer adherence to testing and project schedules and budgets
 Possibility of delivery of a higher quality software.

4. What are the two basic testing strategies?

Black box and white box are the two basic testing strategies.

5. What is white box testing?

It focuses on the inner structure of the software to be tested.It is otherwise called a
glass box testing.

6. What is black box testing?

It has no knowledge of its inner structure but has knowledge of what it does.

7. Name some of the black box design approaches to design test cases.
o Random testing
o Equivalence class partitioning
o Boundary value analysis

8. Define equivalence class partitioning.

Equivalence class partitioning results in a partitioning of the input domain of the
software under test. The finite number of partitions or equivalence classes that result
allow the tester to select a given member of an equivalence class as a representative of
the class.

9. What do you mean by boundary value analysis?

Boundary value analysis requires that the tester select elements close to the edges,
so that both the upper and lower edges of an equivalence class are covered by the test
cases.

10. What is random testing?

If a tester randomly selects input from the domain, this is called random testing.

11. What is cause and effect graphing?

It is a technique that can be used to combine conditions and derive an effective set
of test cases that may disclose inconsistencies in a specification.

12. What is STG?

STG is State Transition Graph. It represents the states and state transitions in a
system.

13. What is a decision table?

It has a row for each cause and each effect. The entries are a relection of the rules
and the entries in the cause and effect graph.

14. What is COTS?

COTS – Commercial Off The Shelf. They are reusable components coming from
an outside vendor who specializes in the development of specific types of software
components.

15. What is certification?

It refers to third party assurance that a product, process or service meets a specific
set of requirements.

16. What are test adequacy criteria?

It is a stopping rule. It is used to determine whether or not sufficient testing has
been carried out.

17. When a test data set is told to be statement or branch adequate?

A test data set is statement or branch adequate if a test set T for program P causes
all the statements or branches to be executed respectively.

18. What is program based adequacy criteria?

If the test adequacy criterion focuses on the structural properties of a program, it
is program based adequacy criteria.

19. What is specification based adequacy criteria?

If the test adequacy criterion focuses on the specifications of a program, it is
specification based adequacy criteria.
20. What is degree of coverage?
When a coverage related testing goal is expressed as a percent, it is called as
degree of coverage.

21. What is a program prime?

A program prime is an atomic programming unit. Eg. Sequential, decision and
iterative.

22. What is a path?

A path is a sequence of control flow nodes usually beginning from the entry node
of a graph through to the exit node.

23. What is an independent path?

It is any new path through the graph that introduces a new edge that has not be
traversed before the path is defined.

24. What is mutation score?

Mutation score is used to measure the mutation adequacy of a test set T for a
program P.

no. of dead mutants

MS=_____________________________________________

No. of total mutants – no. of equivalent mutants.

25. What is fault based testing?

Fault based testing focuses on making modifications to the software, testing the
modified version and comparing results.

Unit III
Part A

1. What are the major phases of testing?

Unit testing, integration testing, system testing, and acceptance testing.

2. What are the two major approaches to system development?

Bottom up and top down approaches

3. What is unit testing?

In unit testing, a single component is tested. A principal goal is to detect
functional and structural defects in the unit.

4. What are the three phases in unit test planning?

The three phases are:

 Describe unit test approach and risks

 Identify unit features to be tested.
  Add levels of detail to the plan.

5. What is test harness?

The auxiliary code developed to support testing of units and components is called
a test harness.

6. what is integration testing?

Units are integrated together and tested along with the interfaces. The two
approaches are top down integration and bottom up integration.

7. What are the goals in an integration test?

Integration test for procedural code has two major goals.

 to detect defects that occur on the interface of units

 to assemble the individual units into working subsystems and finally
a complete system that is ready for the system test.

8. What is system testing?

The system is tested as a whole to ensure that the system performs according to its
requirements.

9. What are the types of system tests?

Functional testing, performance testing, stress testing, configuration testing,
security testing, and recovery testing are the types of system tests.

10. What is functional testing?

Functional tests at the system level are used to ensure that the behaviour of the
system adheres to the requirements specification. All functional requirements for the
system must be achievable by the system.

11. What is performance testing?

Performance testing allows testers to tune the system, that is, to optimize the
allocation of system resources. The goal of system performance tests is to see if the
software meets the performance requirements.

12. What are the two major requirements in performance testing?

 Functional requirements
 Quality requirements

13. What is stress testing?

When a system is tested with a load that causes it to allocate its resources in
maximum amounts, this is called stress testing.

14. What is meant by load?

Load is a series of inputs that simulates a group of transactions. An important tool
for implementing system test is a load generator which generates load.

15. What is configuration testing?

 Configuration testing allows developers/testers to evaluate system performance
and availability when hardware exchanges and reconfigurations occur.

16. What are the objectives in configuration testing?

 Show that all the configuration changing commands and menus work
properly.
 Show that all interchangeable devices are really interchangeable, and that
they each enter the proper states for the specified conditions
 Show that the system’s performance level is maintained when the devise
are interchanged or when they fail.

17. What is security testing?

Security testing evaluates system characteristics that relate to the availability,
integrity and confidentiality of the system data and services.

18. What are the effects of security breaches to a system?

 Loss of information
 Corruption of information
 Misinformation
 Privay violation
 Denial of service

19. What are the various means by which damage can be done to the security of the
system?
 Viruses
 Trojan horses
 Trap doors
 Illicit channels

20. What is recovery testing?

Recovery testing subjects a system to losses of resources in order to determine if
it can recover properly from these losses.

21. What is regression testing?

Regression testing is the retesting of software that occurs when changes are made
to ensure that the new version of the software has retained the capabilities of the old
version and that no new defects have been introduced due to the changes.

22. What are the stages of acceptance test?

 Alpha test
 Beta test

23. What is alpha testing?

It is the first phase in acceptance test. A cross-section of potential users and
members of the developer’s organization are invited to use the software.
24. What is beta test?
Beta test sends the software to a cross-section of users who install it and use it
under real world working conditions. The users send records of problems with the
software to the development organization where the defects are repaired sometimes in
time for the current release.

25. What is the goal of acceptance testing?

During acceptance test the development organization must show that the software
meets all of the client’s requirements.

Unit IV
Part A

1. What is a goal?
A goal can be described as a statement of intent or a statement of a
accomplishment that an individual or an organization wants to achieve.

2. What is a policy?
A policy can be defined as a high level statement of principle or course of action
that is used to govern a set of activities in an organization.

3. What is a plan?
A plan is a document that provides a framework or approach for achiving a set of
goals.

4. What are milestones?

Milestones are tangible events that are expected to occur at a certain time in the
project’s lifetime.

5. What are the items included in the test plan?

Overall testing objectives, scope of the tests, who will test, how to test, when to
test, when to stop testing are the items included in a test plan.

6. Give some of the test plan components.

Test plan identifier, items to be tested, features to be tested, pass/fail effects,
suspension and resumption criteria, testing costs etc.

7. What is WBS?
WBS is Work Breakdown Structure. It is a hierarchical or treelike representation
of all its tasks that are required to complete a project.

8. Give some of the test cost items or the characteristics of the system that impact on
the cost of testing.
The nature of the organization, in testing maturity level and general maturity, the
nature of the software product being developed, the scope of the test requirements, the
elvel of tester ability, knowledge of the project problem domain, the level of tool support,
and training requirements.
9. How is the cost measured by COCOMO model?
Testing costs = 0.5* total project costs.

10. What are the test plan attachments?

Test design specifications, test case specifications, test procedure specifications.

11. What are the components of the test design specification?

Test design specification identifier, features to be tested, approach refinements,
test case identification and pass/fail criteria.

12. What are the components of test case specification?

Test case specification identifier, test items, input specifications, output
specifications, special environmental needs, special procedural requirements, and
intercase dependencies.

14. What are the components of test procedure specifications?

Test procedure specification identifier, purpose, specific requirements, procedure
steps.

15. What are the procedure steps?

Setup, start, proceed, measure, shut down, restart, stop, wrap up are the procedure
steps.

16. What are the information that should be present in a Test Item Transmittal
Report?
The Test Item Transmittal Report should contain the following information for
each item that is tracked: version/revision number of the item, location of the item,
persons responsible for the item, references to item documentation and the test plan it is
related to, status of the item, and approvals.

17. What are the documents that are prepared during and after execution of the
tests?
Test log, test incident report, and test summary report.

18. What is a test log?

Test log is a diary of the events that take place during the test. It supports the
concept of a test as a repeatable experiment.

19. What are the sections in a test log?

Test log identifier, description, activity and event entries are the sections in a test
log.

20. What do the activity and event entries contain?

Execution description, procedure results, environmental information, anomalous
events and incident report identifiers.
21. What is a test incident report?
The test incident report or problem report has the event that occurs during the
execution of the tests that is unexpected, unexplainable, and that requires a follow-up
investigation.

22. What are the sections in a test incident report?

Test incident report identifier, summary, incident description, and impact are the
sections in a test incident report.

23. What is a test summary report?

The test summary report is prepared when testing is complete. It is a summary of
the results of the testing efforts.

24. What are the sections in a test summary report?

Test summary report identifier, variances, comprehensiveness assessment,
summary of results, evaluation, summary of activities, and approvals are the sections in a
test summary report.

25. What are the three critical groups in testing planning and test policy
development?
Managers, Developers/Tester and Users/Clients are the three groups testing
planning and test policy development.

26. What are the steps in forming a test group?

Upper management support for test function, establishment of test group
organization and career paths, definition of education and skill levels, development of job
description, interviewing candidates and selecting test group members are the steps in
forming a test group.

Unit V
Part A

1. What is project monitoring?

Project monitoring or tracking refers to the activities and tasks managers engage
in to periodically check the status of each project. Reports are prepared that compare the
actual work done to the work that was planned.

2. What is project controlling?

Project controlling consists of developing and applying a set of corrective actions
to get a project on track when monitoring shows a deviation from what was planned.

3. What are project status meetings?

The test manager can use measurement related data and other useful test related
information for presentation and discussion at the periodic meetings for project
monitoring and controlling. These are called project status meetings.
4. What is a milestone meeting?
A milestone meeting occurs when a milestone has been met. It is a mechanism
for project team to communicate with upper management and user/client groups.

5. What are status report graphs?

In status report graphs earned value is usually plotted against time and on the
same graph budgeted expenses and actual expenses may be polotted against time for
comparison.

6. What are the types of testing status measurements?

 Coverage measures
 Test case development
 Test execution
 Test harness development

7. What is DRL?
DRL – Detect Removal Leverage can be described as a review measurement
which can be applied to measure the relative effectiveness of reviews versus test phases
and test phases with respect to one another.

For eg. One can compare:

Number of defects found in integration test
DRL(Integration/unit test)= Number of defects found in unit test.

8. What is TCE?
TCE is an effectiveness metric. It can be defined as follows:

Number of defects found by the test cases

TCE = Total number of defects x 100

9. What are the items that should be present in a status report?

Activities and accomplishments during the reporting period, problems
encountered since the last meeting period, problems solved, outstanding problems,
current project state versus plan, expenses versus budget, and plans for the next time
period are the items that should be present in a status report.

10. What is fault seeding?

Fault seeding is intentionally inserting a known set of defects into a program.

11. What are the four major activities associated with configuration management?
The four major activities associated with configuration management are:

 Identification of the configuration items

 Change control
 Configuration status reporting
 Configuration audits
12. What is baseline?
Baselines are formally reviewed and agreed upon versions of software artifacts
from which all changes are measured. They serve as the basis for futher development and
can be changed only through formal change procedures.

13. What are the three critical groups in testing process?

 Managers
 Developers/ testers
 Users/clients
14. What is V model?
According to V model, review begins at requirement time and continue through
development at the conclusion of each major life cycle phase.

15. List four key items that test managers use for monitoring and controlling test
efforts for a project.
 Testing status
 Tester productivity
 Testing cost
 Error, faults and failures

16. What is a review?

A review is a group meeting whose purpose is to evaluate a software artifact or a
set of software artifacts.

17. What are the general goals for the reviewers?

 Identify problem component or component in software artifacts that need
improvements
 Identify component in software artifacts that do not need improvements
 Ensure that the software artifact conforms to organizational standards.

18. Give some benefits of review.

Some of the benefits of a review program are :
 Higher quality software
 Increased productivity
 Closer adherence to project schedules
 Increased awareness of quality issues

19. What is the role of technical review?

Technical reviews are used to
 Verify that a software artifact meets its specification
 To detect defects and
 Check for compliance to standards

20. What are the items selected for a review?

The items selected for a review includes: requirements and documents, design
documents, code, test plans, user manuals, training manuals, and standards documents.
21. Who are the members of a review team?
SQA staff, testers, developers, users/clients and specialists are the review team
members.

22. What is round robin review?

There is cycling through the review team members so that everyone gets to
participate in equal manner.

23. What is the role of testers in review program?

The testers support the review program by working with management and the
software engineers to develop review policies and plans.

24. What are the status options in the review report?

Accept, conditional accept and reinspect are the status options in the review
report.

25. What are the contents of a walkthrough report?

The walkthrough report lists all the defects and deficiencies and contains data
such as the walkthrough team members, the name of the item being examined, the
walkthrough objectives, list of defects and deficiencies, and recommendations on how to
dispose of, or resolve the deficiencies.