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
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
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 Management
Which of the following statements best describes an appropriate approach for managing exploratory testing?
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
Which of the following information would you expect to be the most useful to perform a defect clustering analysis?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Testing Process
Which of the following statements describing the consequences of specifying test conditions at a detailed level is NOT true?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
You are a Test Manager on a new project. The software that is being created will be used to control the projectors in movie theaters. This is a time critical project because the software must be
released before the Christmas holiday season which has the highest movie attendance of the year.
You have decided to implement a review process for the work products that are a part of this release to save both time and money. In order to expedite the training, you brought in a consultant to
train the participants and moderators in proper review processes. Your team is enthusiastic about participating in the reviews.
The project is in the early planning stages. As the review leader, what is an appropriate activity for you to be doing at this point in the project? [3]
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
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
The following is the unique “critical” quality risk item that has been identified:
CR-RSK-1. The GUI of the application might accept non-integer values for the input field designed to get the number of bottles from the user
Test analysis for system testing has just begun and the following test conditions have been identified:
TC-SEL-2. Test the selection of the package sizes
TC-SEL-4. Test wrong numbers of bottles for an order
TC-CR-RSK-1. Test the accepted values from the input field designed to get the number of bottles from the user
What is the MINIMUM number of test conditions that must be added to fulfill both the EXCR1 and EXCR2 exit criteria?
Number of correct responses: 1
K32 credits
The following are the requirements identified as “critical”:
REQ-SEL-001. The user shall be able to combine all the three products with all the four durations to define an item to purchase
REQ-SEL-002. The user shall be able to add a maximum of six different items to the shopping cart
REQ-PUR-001. The user shall be able to purchase all the items in the shopping cart using a credit voucher
REQ-PUR-002. The user shall be able to purchase all the items in the shopping cart using the available credit already charged on the smartcard
REQ-PUR-003. The user shall be able to purchase all the items in the shopping cart using all the accepted credit cards (Visa, MasterCard and Great Wall Card)
REG-LOGO-001. The user shall be able to logout (by clicking the logout button) from both the “select” and “purchase” pages going back to the “browse” page (anonymous navigation)
Moreover the following quality risk item has been identified as “critical”:
QR-P1. The web customer portal might not be able to provide the expected response time (less than 10 sec) for the purchase transactions under a load of up-to 1000 concurrent users
Test analysis for system testing has just begun and the following test conditions have been identified:
TC-SEL-01. Test the combinations of products and durations to define an item to purchase
TC-SEL-02. Test the maximum number of items, which can be added to the shopping cart
TC-PUR-01. Test the purchase of an item
TC-PUR-02. Test the purchase of an item with the credit charged on the smartcard
Assume that you have used traceability to determine the logical test cases that cover all the requirements and the single risk item identified in that scenario.
Which of the following is a positive logical test that is complete, is correct, and covers the REG-LOGO-001 requirement?
Number of correct responses: 1
K32 credits
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
Defect Management
Consider a defect report and assume that a part of its lifecycle includes the following states:
New: Is the initial state
Working: Means that the developers are addressing the defect in order to produce a fix for the defect
Clarification: Means that the developers need more information from the tester to address the defect and produce a fix for the defect and the tester is working to provide this information to the developers
Verification: Means that a fix for the defect has been produced and the tester is running the adequate tests to verify whether the fix solves the defect
Closed: is the final state
Which of the following answers represents an invalid sequence of states that can’t lead the bug report to the “Closed” state?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
Your company just won a contract to create a new sales application and has committed to a very aggressive delivery timeline. Due to the quick turnaround your primary stakeholder wants to be
heavily involved in the design and is very anxious to see the outcome. Because of this, your company has decided to use a spiral development approach. You have a defined test policy and
typically use an analytical approach to testing, however, this approach will not work with the development approach.
What test strategy should be utilized? [3]
You have been promoted to Test Manager within your company. Your new manager states that your test team utilized a risk-based test approach for the last release but in production, a number of
serious failures in lightly tested areas have occurred.
What would be your first action prior to the start of the next test phase for the next release? [3]
Which work experience is likely to develop the necessary skills to effectively test a software system? [3]
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
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 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
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
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
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
Which of the following would you expect to be most likely an example of a motivating factor for testers?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit
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
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
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
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 STEP test process improvement model is true?
Number of correct responses: 1
K21 credit