Improving the Testing Process
Consider the following statements describing the importance of improving the test process:
I. Test process improvement is important because being focused only on the test process it can provide recommendations to improve the test process itself, but it can’t indicate or suggest improvement to areas of the development process
II. Test process improvement is important because it is much more effective than software process improvement to improve the quality of a software system
III. Test process improvement is important because several process improvement models (STEP, TPI Next, TMMi) have been developed over the years
IV. Test process improvement is important because every organization, regardless of the context, should always achieve the maximum level of maturity of testing described in the test improvement models such as TMMi
Which of the following answers is correct?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Improving the Testing Process
Which of the following statements about the TMMi test process improvement model is true?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Improving the Testing Process
Which of the following statements about the STEP test process improvement model is true?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Defect Management
During the system testing phase a tester from your test team observes a failure in the system under test and he/she decides to create an incident report. The incident report is currently in a “new” state, indicating it needs to be investigated.
Which THREE of the following information items can’t yet be present in the incident report?
Number of correct responses: 3
K32 credits (2 credits out of 3 credits correct, 1 credit point)
Defect Management
Assume you are working on a defect management process to be used by a software organization to track the current status of the defects reports for several projects.
When a defect is found for investigation a defect report is created in “Opened” state that is the unique initial state. The defect report status has also a unique finale state that is the “Closed” state.
The following state transition diagram describes the states of this defect management process:
where only the initial (“Opened”) and final (“Closed”) states are indicated while the remaining states (V, W, X, Y, Z) have yet to be named.
Which of the following assignments would you expect to best complete the defect management process?
Number of correct responses: 1
K32 credits
During the follow-up phase the following conditions are checked:
X1. The code has been completely reviewed
X2. All the identified defects have been correctly fixed and the modified code has been compiled successfully and run through all the static analyzers used by the project without warnings and errors
X3. The modified code is available under the configuration management system with a new version number for the specified CI
If these conditions are fulfilled then the review process terminates.
Which of the following characteristics of a formal review is missing in this description?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Reviews
Consider the following list of statements about audits and management reviews:
I. Audits are usually more effective than management reviews at finding defects
II. Audits and management reviews have the same main goals, the only difference is related to the roles and level of formality
III. A typical outcome of an audit includes observations and recommendations, corrective actions and a pass/fail assessment
IV. An audit is not the appropriate mechanism to use at the code review in order to detect defects prior to dynamic testing
Which of the following statements is true?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
The main objectives the senior management team wants to achieve are:
- to reduce the costs associated with dynamic testing
- to use reviews to ensure that the project is on course for success and following the plan
- to use reviews as a well-documented and effective bug-removal activity following a formal process with well-defined roles
- to determine the effectiveness of reviews in terms of phase containment
- to improve phase containment effectiveness
Which of the following answers would you expect to describe the best way to achieve these objectives?
Number of correct responses: 1
K43 credits
Reviews
You are a Test Manager working for a software organization where reviews have never been applied. After a meeting with your managers examining a business case for reviews, (including their costs, benefits, and potential issues), the management finally decides to adopt formal reviews for future projects.
You have been given a budget that you have spent to provide training in the review process and to introduce the review process on a pilot project.
On that pilot project the introduction of reviews has been very positive in terms of positive involvement from all the participants. All the reviews applied to different documents have been very effective for their purposes (especially at revealing defects).
Which of the following answers describes an important success factor for the introduction of formal reviews which is missing in this scenario?
Number of correct responses: 1
K43 credits
Reviews
You are the Test Manager of a project that adopts a V-model with four formal levels of testing: unit, integration, system and acceptance testing.
On this project reviews have been conducted for each development phase prior to testing, which is to say that reviews of requirements, functional specification, high-level design, low-level design and code have been performed prior to testing.
Assume that no requirements defects have been reported after the release of the product.
Which TWO of the following metrics do you need in order to evaluate the requirements reviews in terms of phase containment effectiveness?
Number of correct responses: 2
K32 credits
People Skills – Team Composition
Your test team consists of four members (Mary, Bob, Mark, Dave) with different interpersonal skills.
The following skills assessment spreadsheet shows the characteristics of the team members with respect to a list of interpersonal-skills (for each characteristic only the member with the highest level of that characteristic is indicated and marked with ‘X’):
On the next project a member of your test team will have to perform some routine tasks requiring collaboration with other teams.
Who in your test team would you expect to be most suitable at doing these tasks?
Number of correct responses: 1
K43 credits
People Skills – Team Composition
Assume you are managing the system testing execution phase of a project.
The system test execution period for that project is scheduled for eighteen weeks and the release date is scheduled at the end of system testing.
During the sixth week of system test execution, at the staff meeting, the project manager informs you that the project deadlines are changed and the release date that is only three weeks ahead.
This new release will not allow the completion of the system tests. Suppose also that you have followed a risk-driven test approach for this project.
Which of the following statements represents the worst way to lead your test team in the next three weeks?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
People Skills – Team Composition
Consider the following analysis of testing skills performed on four people: Alex, Robert, John and Mark (all the skills have been rated on an ascending scale: The higher the score, the better the skill):
Which of these people, based on this analysis, would you expect to be most suitable to work specifically as test designer?
Number of correct responses: 1
K43 credits
People Skills – Team Composition
Which of the following would you expect to be most likely an example of a demotivating factor for testers?
Number of correct responses: 2
K21 credit
People Skills – Team Composition
An agile development team decides to hire a tester who has always worked:
- in independent test teams, reporting the problems found in a defect tracking system
- in safety-critical projects, with a stronger focus on the quality of the product than on time and budget.
This agile team is focused on short-term goals to get the product released on time and within budget.
Which of the following answers would you expect to be most likely true in this scenario?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Consider the following scenario:
Your customer is closely involved in the development project. Requirements are communicated verbally and rarely written down. An iterative development model is being followed and time boxing is used to stay on schedule.
Which of the following statements is true? [3]
You are the Test Manager of a risk-based testing effort. You develop the following graph to show residual risk. Assume that "Risks mitigated" represents passed tests and "Risks not mitigated"
represents failed tests and other discovered failures.
Which of the following answers best represents what the graph shows? [3]
Which testing metric identifies defect density? [1]
You have directed one of your testers to construct a "smoke test" to execute against new builds prior to starting formal testing. This is an example of which software development lifecycle activity?
[1]
You are testing a new product that will turn on the windshield wipers of a car when the sensors detect there is moisture on the windshield. Depending on the information
returned from the sensors, the wipers will be turned on at one of the following speeds: slow intermittent, medium intermittent, fast intermittent, slow constant, medium
constant, fast constant. Your team has identified the following test condition:
Test Condition 1.1.1 - Verify that the windshield wipers can go from slow constant to fast constant speed when the amount of moisture increases appropriately.
Your team has defined the following steps for a test case for this test condition:
1. Set the moisture sensor to request slow constant
2. Increase the moisture to set the sensor to request fast constant
3. Verify that the wipers respond with fast constant speed
Given this information, which of the following statements is correct? [2]
Test Management
Assume you are managing the system testing phase of a project.
The system test execution period is scheduled to twenty weeks.
All tests are manual tests. You are following a risk-driven test approach.
During the last staff meeting the project manager tells you new deadlines that will not allow completion of all the system tests.
Which of the following would you expect to be the best way to respond to this situation?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Test Management
For which of the following activities would the costs be classified as a cost of detection?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Test Management
Which of the following answers describes a factor that may reduce the effort spent when using distributed test teams without negatively affecting system quality?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Test Management
In the test strategy document your organization declares:
- to adopt a V-model development lifecycle, with three formal levels of testing: unit, integration and system testing
- to use a blended risk-based and regression-averse testing strategy for each level of testing
The following is an excerpt of the “approach” section for the system test plan document of a new project:
“Testing will only use manual tests. Due to the short period of time for test execution, the following activities will be performed in parallel with test execution: Test planning, test analysis and test design.
Basic metrics will be taken for test effort (i.e. person-hours), test cases executed (passed/failed), and incidents (no more metrics, such as code coverage, will be collected).”
In the system test plan, no deviations from the test strategy are described.
Based only on the given information, which of the following statements is true?
Number of correct responses: 1
K43 credits
Test Management
Which of the following statements, about the test reporting activities for a project adopting an iterative lifecycle model with very short iterations (e.g. two weeks iterations), is correct?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Test Tools and Automation
Assume you are the Test Manager in charge of independent testing for avionics applications.
You are in charge of testing for a project to implement three different CSCI (Computer Software Configuration Item):
- a BOOT-X CSCI that must be certified at level B of the DO-178B standard
- a DIAG-X CSCI that must be certified at level C of the DO-178B standard
- a DRIV-X CSCI that must be certified at level A of the DO-178B standard
These are three different software modules written in C language to run on a specific hardware platform.
You have been asked to select a single code coverage tool to perform the mandatory code coverage measurements, in order to meet the structural coverage criteria prescribed by the DO-178B standard. This tool must be qualified as a verification tool under DO-178B.
Since there are significant budget constraints to purchase this tool, you are evaluating an open-source tool that is able to provide different types of code coverage. This tool meets perfectly your technical needs in terms of the programming language and the specific hardware platform (it supports also the specific C-compiler).
The source code of the tool is available.
Your team could easily customize the tool to meet the project needs. This tool is not qualified as a verification tool under the DO-178B.
Which of the following are the three main concerns related to that open-source tool selection?
Number of correct responses: 3
K43 credits (2 credits out of 3 credits correct, 1 credit point)
Test Tools and Automation
After a selection process you have selected a test management tool that is going be introduced in your organization and used by your test team in a pilot project.
You have already identified the member of your test team who will be the administrator of the tool, since he/she has a significant experience with the administration of test management tools and so he/she is able to make effective and efficient up-front decisions about "how" the tool will be used. You have also developed a training plan for the other members of your test team.
In collaboration with the administrator of the tool you have also devised standard ways of managing, storing and maintaining the tool and its assets including backup/restore procedures.
You have also analyzed standard formats supported by the tool (CSV, XLS, XML, etc.) to export, import and archive all the information managed by the tool itself (requirements, test case specifications, test plans etc.) for compliance with the most important test management tools, in order to minimize the impacts of migrating this information to a new tool that could replace the existing one in the future.
Which of the following phases in the lifecycle of the new tool has NOT been adequately considered in this description?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Test Tools and Automation
In your organization the following tools of the same vendor are currently in use: a requirements management tool, a test management tool and a bug tracking tool.
You are the Test Manager.
You are currently evaluating a test automation tool of the same vendor (to complete the vendor's tool suite) against an interesting open-source test automation tool under the GNU GPL (General Public License).
There are no initial costs associated to that open-source tool.
Which of the following statements associated to the selection of the open-source tool is correct in this scenario?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Test Tools and Automation
Assume you are a Test Manager involved in system testing of a CRM application for a Pay-TV company. Currently the application is able to support a proper number of users assuring the required responsiveness. Since the business is expected to grow, you have been asked to evaluate the ability of the application to grow to support more users while maintaining the same responsiveness.
Which of the following tools would you expect to be the most useful at performing this evaluation?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Test Tools and Automation
Assume you are managing a test automation project for a mission-critical system.
Because vendor provided tools and open source solutions don't meet the needs of this project, you ask your test team to develop a custom automation framework.
Which of the following management issues associated to the development of this custom automation framework is least likely to manage?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Testing Process
Consider an information system of a Pay-Tv company based on a SOA architecture.
The integrated system currently consists of three core systems:
- a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system
- a BRM (Billing and Revenue Management) system
- a CAS (Conditional Access System) system
all of them communicating with SOA Middleware.
You have been asked to manage the testing activities for the integration of two additional off-the-shelf systems from two different vendors: a SMS (Short Message Service) server and an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system.
Assume that there is a high likelihood that the two off-the-shelf systems will be low-quality and that you have a clear proof that the testing performed by the two vendors on their systems has been unsystematic and unprofessional. This obviously leads to higher quality risk for the overall integrated system.
You are the Test Manager of this project. Your main goal is to plan for testing activities to mitigate this risk.
Which of the following answers best describes the test activities (assuming it is possible to perform all of them) you should plan for?
Number of correct responses: 1
K43 credits
You are not confident with the assessment of the risk level and you suspect that it will be possible to find high-priority bugs in low-risk areas.
Furthermore the period for test execution is very short. Your goal is to test all the product risks in a risk-based way, while assuring that each product risk gets at least some amount of testing.
Which of the following answers describes the best test execution schedule in this scenario?
Number of correct responses: 1
K32 credits
Testing Process
Which of the following is an example of the test closure activity indicated as "lessons learned"?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
You are following a risk-based testing strategy. The test execution time is very limited. Assume that all the product risk items require more or less the same level of test effort.
Which of the following answers describes the best execution schedule in this scenario?
Number of correct responses: 1
K33 credits
Assume that the following test cases have been executed at the end of the first week of test execution: TC-001, TC-002 and TC-007. All these tests are ‘passes’.
What is the MINIMUM number of the remaining test cases that must be successfully executed to fulfill the EX1 exit criteria?
Number of correct responses: 1
K32 credits