SQA and testing frequently asked definitions
Black box testing
not based on any knowledge of internal design or code. Tests are based on requirements and functionality.
White box testing
based on knowledge of the internal logic of an application’s code. Tests are based on coverage of code statements, branches, paths, conditions.
Unit testing
the most ‘micro’ scale of testing; to test particular functions or code modules. Typically done by the programmer and not by testers, as it requires detailed knowledge of the internal program design and code. Not always easily done unless the application has a well-designed architecture with tight code; may require developing test driver modules or test harnesses.
Incremental integration testing
continuous testing of an application as new functionality is added; requires that various aspects of an application’s functionality be independent enough to work separately before all parts of the program are completed, or that test drivers be developed as needed; done by programmers or by testers.
Integration testing
testing of combined parts of an application to determine if they function together correctly. The ‘parts’ can be code modules, individual applications, client and server applications on a network, etc. This type of testing is especially relevant to client/server and distributed systems.
Functional testing
black-box type testing geared to functional requirements of an application; this type of testing should be done by testers. This doesn’t mean that the programmers shouldn’t check that their code works before releasing it (which of course applies to any stage of testing.)
System testing
black box type testing that is based on overall requirement specifications; covers all combined parts of a system.
End-to-end testing
similar to system testing; the ‘macro’ end of the test scale; involves testing of a complete application environment in a situation that mimics real-world use, such as interacting with a database, using network communications, or interacting with other hardware, applications, or systems if appropriate.
Sanity testing
typically an initial testing effort to determine if a new software version is performing well enough to accept it for a major testing effort. For example, if the new software is crashing systems every 5 minutes, bogging down systems to a crawl, or destroying databases, the software may not be in a ’sane’ enough condition to warrant further testing in its current state.
Regression testing
re-testing after fixes or modifications of the software or its environment. It can be difficult to determine how much re-testing is needed, especially near the end of the development cycle. Automated testing tools can be especially useful for this type of testing.
Acceptance testing
final testing based on specifications of the end-user or customer, or based on use by end-users/customers over some limited period of time.
Load testing
testing an application under heavy loads, such as testing of a web site under a range of loads to determine at what point the systems response time degrades or fails.
Stress testing
term often used interchangeably with ‘load’ and ‘performance’ testing. Also used to describe such tests as system functional testing while under unusually heavy loads, heavy repetition of certain actions or inputs, input of large numerical values, large complex queries to a database system, etc.
Performance testing
term often used interchangeably with ’stress’ and ‘load’ testing. Ideally ‘performance’ testing (and any other ‘type’ of testing) is defined in requirements documentation or QA or Test Plans.
Usability testing
testing for ‘user-friendliness’. Clearly this is subjective, and will depend on the targeted end-user or customer. User interviews, surveys, video recording of user sessions, and other techniques can be used. Programmers and testers are usually not appropriate as usability testers.
Install/uninstall testing
testing of full, partial, or upgrade install/uninstall processes.
Recovery testing
testing how well a system recovers from crashes, hardware failures, or other catastrophic problems.
Security testing
testing how well the system protects against unauthorized internal or external access, willful damage, etc; may require sophisticated testing techniques.
Compatibility testing
testing how well software performs in a particular hardware/software/operating system/network/etc. environment.
Exploratory testing
often taken to mean a creative, informal software test that is not based on formal test plans or test cases; testers may be learning the software as they test it.
Ad-hoc testing
similar to exploratory testing, but often taken to mean that the testers have significant understanding of the software before testing it.
User acceptance testing
determining if software is satisfactory to an end-user or customer.
Comparison testing
comparing software weaknesses and strengths to competing products.
Alpha testing
testing of an application when development is nearing completion; minor design changes may still be made as a result of such testing. Typically done by end-users or others, not by programmers or testers.
Beta testing
testing when development and testing are essentially completed and final bugs and problems need to be found before final release. Typically done by end-users or others, not by programmers or testers.
Mutation testing
a method for determining if a set of test data or test cases is useful, by deliberately introducing various code changes (’bugs’) and retesting with the original test data/cases to determine if the ‘bugs’ are detected. Proper implementation requires large computational resources.
QA vs. Testing
Testing: The process of executing a system with the intent of finding defects including test planning prior to the execution of the test cases.
Quality Control: A set of activities designed to evaluate a developed working product.
Quality Assurance: A set of activities designed to ensure that the development and/or maintenance process is adequate to ensure a system will meet its objectives.
Test Automation interview questions:
1. What automating testing tools are you familiar with?
2. How did you use automating testing tools in your job?
3. Describe some problem that you had with automating testing tool.
4. How do you plan test automation?
5. Can test automation improve test effectiveness?
6. What is data – driven automation?
7. What are the main attributes of test automation?
8. Does automation replace manual testing?
9. How will you choose a tool for test automation?
10. How you will evaluate the tool for test automation?
11. What are main benefits of test automation?
12. What could go wrong with test automation?
13. How you will describe testing activities?
14. What testing activities you may want to automate?
15. Describe common problems of test automation.
16. What types of scripting techniques for test automation do you know?
17. What are principles of good testing scripts for automation?
18. What tools are available for support of testing during software development life cycle?
19. Can the activities of test case design be automated?
20. What are the limitations of automating software testing?
21. What skills needed to be a good test automator?
22. How to find that tools work well with your existing system?
23. Describe some problem that you had with automating testing tool.
24. What are the main attributes of test automation?
25. What testing activities you may want to automate in a project?
26. How to find that tools work well with your existing system?
27. What are some of the common misconceptions during implementation of an automated testing tools for the first time?
WinRunner interview questions
1. Give one line answer about WinRunner?
2. How do you define WinRunner on your own?
3. WinRunner is suitable for which type of applications?
4. What are all the types of applications WinRunner can use?
5. What’s the WinRunner version number you used for your applications?
6. What are all the different types of recordings available in WinRunner?
7. When do you go for Context Sensitive and Analog recordings? What’s the difference between them?
8. What are all the Limitations & Advantages of WinRunner?
9. Where you find that you can’t use WinRunner for automation?
10. What’s the types application you working on using WinRunner?
11. What’s your comfort level in using WinRunner?
12. What is meant by Synchronization? How do you implement it in WinRunner?
13. What is meant by Check points? Types of Check points? In what situation will you use it?
14. What are all the different platforms that WinRunner can be used?
15. Any knowledge of Test Director?
16. Difference between WinRunner and Test Director?
17. What databases can Test Director reside on?
18. Explain the project tree in Test Director.
19. Advantages of WinRunner over other market tools silk, robot etc.?
20. How does Winrunner identify GUI Objects?
21. What’s the use of GUI Map Editor?
22. Winrunner GUI map modes?
23. What are the two GUI Map modes available in WinRunner?
24. What is the use of rapid test script wizard?
25. How will you synchronize tests using WinRunner? When should you synchronize? Synchronize settings?
26. How do you check GUI objects?
27. How do you check a bitmap?
28. What is meant by GUI Spy?
29. Besides Record and Replay what else can be done using WinRunner?
30. What are different types of running a test?
31. When do you use Verify/Debug/Update Modes?
32 When do you use Break Points?
33. What is Toggle Break Points? How it differ from Break points?
34. What’s Step and Step into?
35. What’s the role of GUI Map Editor? (Its connects logical name in the script to the physical attributes of the object in the GUI Map Editor).
36. What is meant by Function Generator? (F7).
37. How do you load GUI Map Editor?
38. What is injector in load runner?
39. What is TSL? What 4GL is it similar too?
40. How do you program tests with TSL?
41. How do you invoke an application using TSL?
42. What is Module? What’s Compiled Module?
43. Explain data parameterization in WinRunner.
44. What is User Define Functions? What are all the different types of User
45. What is Function? Types of Functions?
46. Defined Functions available in WinRunner?
47. Name a couple of standard web function found in the function generator? And explain their purpose.
48. Where do you use Private/Public function in your script?
49. How do you forcibly capture an Object using WinRunner (when WinRunner not able identify it)?
50. Can you test DB using WinRunner?
51. What are all the different DB that WinRunner can support?
52. How do you set a Query to get/fetch data from the DB?
53. How TSL looks like?
54. What are all the default codes WinRunner will generates when you start an application?
55. What are the other codes you can write/call with in TSL? 56. What are all the different languages can be called using TSL in between the scripts?
57. How do you handle an Exception in WinRunner?
58. Types of Exception available in WinRunner?
59. How do you define an Exception for complete application or for a particular function?
60. How do you run tests on a new version of WinRunner?
61. What are data driven tests & How Do you create it in WinRunner?
62. What’s the File Format used in Data Table?
63. How do you link a Data Table in your script?
64. How do you read text from an application?
65. What is a batch test? How do you program a batch test?
66. What happens when user interface changes?
67. Does load testing possible using WinRunner?
68. Does WinRunner help you in web testing?
69. How do you manage test data, test result?
70. Questions on TSL: How to generate Functions?
71. Running tests from the command line?
72. Explain WinRunner Testing Modes?
73. Have you completed the CPS exam? Which one?
74. Write a short compiled module which selects random numbers; and what function is used to call your customized compiled module?
75. What’s the purpose of the wrun.ini file?
All the answers to these questions are given in the WinRunner User Guide (PDF)& WinRunner Tutorial (PDF) which comes along with WinRunner License Version.
From “Test Automation Architectures
A Context-Based Approach”
By Bret Pettichord , 2002
Ready to Automate?
1. Is automation (or testing) a label for other problems?
No = 15 points
2. Are testers trying to use automation to prove their prowess?
No = 10 points
3. Can testability features be added to the product code?
Yes = 10 points
4. Do testers and developers work cooperatively and with mutual respect?
Yes = 15 points
5. Is automation is developed on an iterative basis?
Yes = 10 points
6. Have you defined the requirements and success criteria for automation?
Yes = 15 points
7. Are you open to different concepts of what test automation can mean?
Yes = 10 points
8. Is test automation lead by someone with an understanding of both programming
and testing?
Yes = 15 points
Ready to Automate?
Scoring
Nevermind 55 or less
Wait and See 60-65
Time for More Training 70-75
Win Over Some Converts 80-85
Ready to Automate 90-100
Load Testing interview questions:
1.What criteria would you use to select Web transactions for
load testing?
2.For what purpose are virtual users created?
3.Why it is recommended to add verification checks to your
all your scenarios?
4.In what situation would you want to parameterize a
text verification check?
5.Why do you need to parameterize fields in your virtual user script?
6.What are the reasons why parameterization is necessary when
load testing the Web server and the database server?
7.How can data caching have a negative effect on load testing results?
8.What usually indicates that your virtual user script has
dynamic data that is dependent on you parameterized fields?
9.What are the benefits of creating multiple actions within
any virtual user script?
10. What is a Load Test Results Summary Report?
Unix and Linux interview questions with short answers for software testers
SQL interview questions with short answers for software testers
General interview questions:
1. What types of documents would you need for QA, QC, and Testing?
2. What did you include in a test plan?
3. Describe any bug you remember.
4. What is the purpose of the testing?
5. What do you like (not like) in this job?
6. What is QA (quality assurance)?
7. What is the difference between QA and testing?
8. How do you scope, organize, and execute a test project?
9. What is the role of QA in a development project?
10. What is the role of QA in a company that produces software?
11. Define quality for me as you understand it
12. Describe to me the difference between validation and verification.
13. Describe to me what you see as a process. Not a particular process, just the basics of having a process.
14. Describe to me when you would consider employing a failure mode and effect analysis.
15. Describe to me the Software Development Life Cycle as you would define it.
16. What are the properties of a good requirement?
17. How do you differentiate the roles of Quality Assurance Manager and Project Manager?
18. Tell me about any quality efforts you have overseen or implemented. Describe some of the challenges you faced and how you overcame them.
19. How do you deal with environments that are hostile to quality change efforts?
20. In general, how do you see automation fitting into the overall process of testing?
21. How do you promote the concept of phase containment and defect prevention?
22. If you come onboard, give me a general idea of what your first overall tasks will be as far as starting a quality effort.
23. What kinds of testing have you done?
24. Have you ever created a test plan?
25. Have you ever written test cases or did you just execute those written by others?
26. What did your base your test cases?
27. How do you determine what to test?
28. How do you decide when you have ‘tested enough?’
29. How do you test if you have minimal or no documentation about the product?
30. Describe me to the basic elements you put in a defect report?
31. How do you perform regression testing?
32. At what stage of the life cycle does testing begin in your opinion?
33. How do you analyze your test results? What metrics do you try to provide?
34. Realising you won’t be able to test everything – how do you decide what to test first?
35. Where do you get your expected results?
36. If automating – what is your process for determining what to automate and in what order?
37. In the past, I have been asked to verbally start mapping out a test plan for a common situation, such as an ATM. The interviewer might say, “Just thinking out loud, if you were tasked to test an ATM, what items might you test plan include?” These type questions are not meant to be answered conclusively, but it is a good way for the interviewer to see how you approach the task.
38. If you’re given a program that will average student grades, what kinds of inputs would you use?
39. Tell me about the best bug you ever found.
40. What made you pick testing over another career?
41. What is the exact difference between Integration & System testing, give me examples with your project.
42. How did you go about testing a project?
43. When should testing start in a project? Why?
44. How do you go about testing a web application?
45. Difference between Black & White box testing
46. What is Configuration management? Tools used?
47. What do you plan to become after say 2-5yrs (Ex: QA Manager, Why?)
48. Would you like to work in a team or alone, why?
49. Give me 5 strong & weak points of yours
50. Why do you want to join our company?
51. When should testing be stopped?
52. What sort of things would you put down in a bug report?
53. Who in the company is responsible for Quality?
54. Who defines quality?
55. What is an equivalence class?
56. Is a “A fast database retrieval rate” a testable requirement?
57. Should we test every possible combination/scenario for a program?
58. What criteria do you use when determining when to automate a test or leave it manual?
59. When do you start developing your automation tests?
60. Discuss what test metrics you feel are important to publish an organization?
61. In case anybody cares, here are the questions that I will be asking:
62. Describe the role that QA plays in the software lifecycle.
63. What should Development require of QA?
64. What should QA require of Development?
65. How would you define a “bug?”
66. Give me an example of the best and worst experiences you’ve had with QA.
67. How does unit testing play a role in the development / software lifecycle?
68. Explain some techniques for developing software components with respect to testability.
69. Describe a past experience with implementing a test harness in the development of software.
70. Have you ever worked with QA in developing test tools? Explain the participation Development should have with QA in leveraging such test tools for QA use.
71. Give me some examples of how you have participated in Integration Testing.
72. How would you describe the involvement you have had with the bug-fix cycle between Development and QA?
72. What is unit testing?
73. Describe your personal software development process.
74. How do you know when your code has met specifications?
75. How do you know your code has met specifications when there are no specifications?
76. Describe your experiences with code analyzers.
77. How do you feel about cyclomatic complexity?
78. Who should test your code?
79.How do you survive chaos?
80. What processes/methodologies are you familiar with?
81. What type of documents would you need for QA/QC/Testing?
82. How can you use technology to solve problem?
83. What type of metrics would you use?
84. How to find that tools work well with your existing system?
85. What automated tools are you familiar with?
86. How well you work with a team?
87. How would you ensure 100% coverage of testing?
88. How would you build a test team?
89. What problem you have right now or in the past? How you solved it?
90. What you will do during the first day of job?
91. What would you like to do five years from now?
92. Tell me about the worst boss you’ve ever had.
93. What are your greatest weaknesses?
94. What are your strengths?
95. What is a successful product?
96. What do you like about Windows?
97. What is good code?
98. Who is Kent Beck, Dr Grace Hopper, Dennis Ritchie?
99. What are basic, core, practises for a QA specialist?
100. What do you like about QA?
101. What has not worked well in your previous QA experience and what would you change?
102. How you will begin to improve the QA process?
103. What is the difference between QA and QC?
104. What is UML and how to use it for testing?
105. What is CMM and CMMI? What is the difference?
106. What do you like about computers?
107. Do you have a favourite QA book? More than one? Which ones? And why.
108. What is the responsibility of programmers vs QA?
109.What are the properties of a good requirement?
110.Ho to do test if we have minimal or no documentation about the product?
111.What are all the basic elements in a defect report?
112.Is an “A fast database retrieval rate” a testable requirement?
113.Why should you care about objects and object-oriented testing?
114. What does 100% statement coverage mean?
115. How do you perform configuration management with typical revision control systems?
116. What is code coverage?
117. What types of code coverage do you know?
118. What tools can be used for code coverage analysis?
119. Is any graph is used for code coverage analysis?
120. At what stage of the development cycle software errors are least costly to correct?
121. What can you tell about the project if during testing you found 80 bugs in it?
122. How to monitor test progress?
123. Describe a few reasons that a bug might not be fixed.
124. What are the possible states of software bug�s life cycle?
WEB Testing interview questions with short answers for software testers
From Cem Kaner article: “Recruiting testers” December 1999
1. What is software quality assurance?
2. What is the value of a testing group? How do you justify your work and budget?
3. What is the role of the test group vis-à¶is documentation, tech support, and so forth?
4. How much interaction with users should testers have, and why?
5. How should you learn about problems discovered in the field, and what should you learn from those problems?
6. What are the roles of glass-box and black-box testing tools?
7. What issues come up in test automation, and how do you manage them?
8. What development model should programmers and the test group use?
9. How do you get programmers to build testability support into their code?
10. What is the role of a bug tracking system?
11. What are the key challenges of testing?
12. Have you ever completely tested any part of a product? How?
13. Have you done exploratory or specification-driven testing?
14. Should every business test its software the same way?
15. Discuss the economics of automation and the role of metrics in testing.
16. Describe components of a typical test plan, such as tools for interactive products and for database products, as well as cause-and-effect graphs and data-flow diagrams.
17. When have you had to focus on data integrity?
18. What are some of the typical bugs you encountered in your last assignment?
19. How do you prioritize testing tasks within a project?
20. How do you develop a test plan and schedule? Describe bottom-up and top-down approaches.
21. When should you begin test planning?
22. When should you begin testing?
23. Do you know of metrics that help you estimate the size of the testing effort?
24. How do you scope out the size of the testing effort?
25. How many hours a week should a tester work?
26. How should your staff be managed? How about your overtime?
27. How do you estimate staff requirements?
28. What do you do (with the project tasks) when the schedule fails?
29. How do you handle conflict with programmers?
30. How do you know when the product is tested well enough?
31. What characteristics would you seek in a candidate for test-group manager?
32. What do you think the role of test-group manager should be? Relative to senior management?
Relative to other technical groups in the company? Relative to your staff?
33. How do your characteristics compare to the profile of the ideal manager that you just described?
34. How does your preferred work style work with the ideal test-manager role that you just described? What is different between the way you work and the role you described?
35. Who should you hire in a testing group and why?
36. What is the role of metrics in comparing staff performance in human resources management?
37. How do you estimate staff requirements?
38. What do you do (with the project staff) when the schedule fails?
39. Describe some staff conflicts youÂ’ve handled.
Here are some questions you might be asked on a job interview for a testing opening: (from MU COSC 198 Software Testing by Dr. Corliss)
1. Why did you ever become involved in QA/testing?
2. What is the testing lifecycle and explain each of its phases?
3. What is the difference between testing and Quality Assurance?
4. What is Negative testing?
5. What was a problem you had in your previous assignment (testing if possible)? How did you resolve it?
6. What are two of your strengths that you will bring to our QA/testing team?
7. How would you define Quality Assurance?
8. What do you like most about Quality Assurance/Testing?
9. What do you like least about Quality Assurance/Testing?
10. What is the Waterfall Development Method and do you agree with all the steps?
11. What is the V-Model Development Method and do you agree with this model?
12. What is the Capability Maturity Model (CMM)? At what CMM level were the last few companies you worked?
13. What is a “Good Tester”?
14. Could you tell me two things you did in your previous assignment (QA/Testing related hopefully) that you are proud of?
15. List 5 words that best describe your strengths.
16. What are two of your weaknesses?
17. What methodologies have you used to develop test cases?
18. In an application currently in production, one module of code is being modified. Is it necessary to re- test the whole application or is it enough to just test functionality associated with that module?
19. Define each of the following and explain how each relates to the other: Unit, System, and Integration testing.
20. Define Verification and Validation. Explain the differences between the two.
21. Explain the differences between White-box, Gray-box, and Black-box testing.
22. How do you go about going into a new organization? How do you assimilate?
23. Define the following and explain their usefulness: Change Management, Configuration Management, Version Control, and Defect Tracking.
24. What is ISO 9000? Have you ever been in an ISO shop?
25. When are you done testing?
26. What is the difference between a test strategy and a test plan?
27. What is ISO 9003? Why is it important
28. What are ISO standards? Why are they important?
29. What is IEEE 829? (This standard is important for Software Test Documentation-Why?)
30. What is IEEE? Why is it important?
31. Do you support automated testing? Why?
32. We have a testing assignment that is time-driven. Do you think automated tests are the best solution?
33. What is your experience with change control? Our development team has only 10 members. Do you think managing change is such a big deal for us?
34. Are reusable test cases a big plus of automated testing and explain why.
35. Can you build a good audit trail using Compuware’s QACenter products. Explain why.
36. How important is Change Management in today’s computing environments?
37. Do you think tools are required for managing change. Explain and please list some tools/practices which can help you managing change.
38. We believe in ad-hoc software processes for projects. Do you agree with this? Please explain your answer.
39. When is a good time for system testing?
40. Are regression tests required or do you feel there is a better use for resources?
41. Our software designers use UML for modeling applications. Based on their use cases, we would like to plan a test strategy. Do you agree with this approach or would this mean more effort for the testers.
42. Tell me about a difficult time you had at work and how you worked through it.
43. Give me an example of something you tried at work but did not work out so you had to go at things another way.
44. How can one file compare future dated output files from a program which has change, against the baseline run which used current date for input. The client does not want to mask dates on the output files to allow compares. – Answer-Rerun baseline and future date input files same # of days as future dated run of program with change. Now run a file compare against the baseline future dated output and the changed programs’ future dated output.
Interviewing Suggestions
1. If you do not recognize a term ask for further definition. You may know the methodology/term but you have used a different name for it.
2. Always keep in mind that the employer wants to know what you are going to do for them, with that you should always stay/be positive.
Preinterview Questions
1. What is the structure of the company?
2. Who is going to do the interview-possible background information of interviewer?
3. What is the employer’s environment (platforms, tools, etc.)?
4. What are the employer’s methods and processes used in software arena?
5. What is the employer’s philosophy?
6. What is the project all about you are interviewing for-as much information as possible.
7. Any terminologies that the company may use.
