Interview Questions for QA Testing - part 2

What is difference between QA, QC and Software Testing? Quality Assurance (QA): QA refers to the planned and systematic way of monitoring the quality of process which is followed to produce a quality product. QA tracks the outcomes and adjusts the process to meet the expectation. Quality Control (QC): Concern with the quality of the product. QC finds the defects and suggests improvements. The process set by QA is implemented by QC. The QC is the responsibility of the tester. Software Testing: is the process of ensuring that product which is developed by the developer meets the user requirement. The motive to perform testing is to find the bugs and make sure that they get fixed.

When to start QA in a project? A good time to start the QA is from the beginning of the project startup. This will lead to plan the process which will make sure that product coming out meets the customer quality expectation. QA also plays a major role in the communication between teams. It gives time to step up the testing environment. The testing phase starts after the test plans are written, reviewed and approved.

What are verification and validation and difference between these two? Verification: process of evaluating steps which is followed up to development phase to determine whether they meet the specified requirements for that stage. Validation: process of evaluating product during or at the end of the development process to determine whether product meets specified requirements. Difference between Verification and Validation: - Verification is Static Testing where as Validations is Dynamic Testing. - Verification takes place before validation. - Verification evaluates plans, documents, requirements and specifications, where as Validation evaluates product. - Verification inputs are checklist, issues list, walkthroughs and inspection, where as in Validation testing of actual product. - Verification output is set of documents, plans, specifications and requirement documents where as in Validation actual product is output.

What is difference between Smoke testing and Sanity Testing? The difference between smoke and sanity testing is described below: - Sanity testing is performed when new build is released after fixing bugs where as smoke testing is performed to check the major functionalities of the application. - Sanity is performed by the tester or the developer but smoke testing can be performed by the tester or developer. - Smoke testing is performed earlier where as sanity is performed after the smoke testing. - Sanity testing is narrow and deep approach of testing and smoke testing is focused testing based on major functionalities.

What is destructive testing, and what are its benefits? Destructive testing includes methods where material is broken down to evaluate the mechanical properties, such as strength, toughness and hardness. For example, finding the quality of a weld is good enough to withstand extreme pressure and also to verify the properties of a material. Benefits of Destructive Testing (DT) - Verifies properties of a material - Determines quality of welds - Helps you to reduce failures, accidents and costs - Ensures compliance with regulations

What is Testware? The testware is: - The subset of software which helps in performing the testing of application. - Testware are required to plan, design, and execute tests. It contains documents, scripts, inputs, expected results, set-up and additional software or utilities used in testing. - Testware is term given to combination of all utilities and application software that required for testing a software package. Testware is special because it has: 1. Different purpose 2. Different metrics for quality and 3. Different users

What is difference between Retesting and Regression testing? The difference between Retesting and Regression testing are as follows: - Retesting is done to verify defects fixes where as regression is perform to check if the defect fix have not impacted other functionality that was working fine before doing changes in the code. - Retesting is planned testing based on the defect fixes listed where as regression is not be always specific to any defect fix. Also regression can be executed for some modules or all modules. - Retesting concern with executing those test cases that are failed earlier whereas regression concern with executing test cases that was passed in earlier builds. - Retesting has higher priority over regression, but in some case retesting and regression testing are carried out in parallel. Explain bug life cycle. Bug Life Cycle: - When a tester finds a bug .The bug is assigned with NEW or OPEN status. - The bug is assigned to development project manager who will analyze the bug .He will check whether it is a valid defect. If it is not valid bug is rejected, now status is REJECTED. - If not, next the defect is checked whether it is in scope. When bug is not part of the current release .Such defects are POSTPONED - Now, Tester checks whether similar defect was raised earlier. If yes defect is assigned a status DUPLICATE - When bug is assigned to developer. During this stage bug is assigned a status IN-PROGRESS - Once code is fixed. Defect is assigned with FIXED status. - Next the tester will re-test the code. In case the test case passes the defect is CLOSED - If the test case fails again the bug is RE-OPENED and assigned to the developer. That’s all to Bug Life Cycle. What is severity and priority of bug? Give some example. Priority: concern with application from the business point of view. It answers: How quickly we need to fix the bug? Or How soon the bug should get fixed? Severity: concern with functionality of application. It deals with the impact of the bug on the application. How much the bug is affecting the functionality of the application? Ex. High Priority and Low Severity: Company logo is not properly displayed on their website. High Priority and High Severity: Suppose you are doing online shopping and filled payment information, but after submitting the form, you get a message like "Order has been cancelled." Low Priority and High Severity: If we have a typical scenario in which the application get crashed, but that scenario exists rarely. Low Priority and Low Severity: There is a mistake like "You have registered success" instead of successfully, success is written. What are the common problems with software automation? Software problem are listed below: 1. Purchasing the license of tool (QTP, selenium, QC, LR) 2. Lack of skilled Tester to run the tool 3. Expectation that automated tests will find a lot of new defects 4. Maintenance of automated tests 5. Technical problems of tools What is the role of QA in a project development? QA stands for QUALITY ASSURANCE. QA team assures the quality by monitor the whole development process. QA tracks the outcomes and adjusting process to meet the expectation. The role of Quality Assurance is discussed below: - QA team is responsible for monitoring the process to be carried out for development. - Responsibilities of QA team are planning testing execution process. - QA Lead creates the time tables and agrees on a Quality Assurance plan for the product. - QA team communicated QA process to the team members. - QA team ensures traceability of test cases to requirements. What is the difference between build and release? BUILD: is a number given to installable software that is given to testing team for testing by the development team. Build number assigned are incremental and sequential. RELEASE: is a number given to installable software that is handed over to customer by the developer or tester. The information of build, release and version are displayed in software help page. Using this build and release customer can let the customer team know which release version build thet are using. Eg "9.4.123.2" (Release Number.Version Number.Build Number.Patch Number) What are the key challenges of software testing? Following are some challenges of software testing 1. Application should be stable enough to be tested. 2. Testing always under time constraint 3. Understanding requirements, Domain knowledge and business user perspective understanding 4. Which tests to execute first? 5. Testing the Complete Application 6. Regression testing 7. Lack of skilled testers. 8. Changing requirements 9. Lack of resources, tools and training Why you choose automated testing over manual testing? The reasons for choosing automation testing over manual testing are following: 1. Frequency of use of test case 2. Time Comparison (automated script run much faster than manual execution.) 3. Re-usability of Automation Script 4. Adaptability of test case for automation. 5. Exploitation of automation tool. What is the basis for choosing the SDLC model for development of software? The choice of SDLC depends on the various factors and how stable are the requirements: - When the requirements are very clearly known, documented and not subject to change then we can follow the waterfall model. - Most of the companies follow the V mode for the development because this model includes both verification and validation activities and testing is involved in earlier phase. - Iterative model can be used to build application where requirement changes after a period of times or application features or added on with smaller release. When the client is ready for the delivery of the product in parts or phases. Explain bug leakage and bug release. Bug Leakage: When customer or end user discovered a bug which can be detected by the testing team. Or when a bug is detected which can be detected in pervious build then this is called as Bug Leakage. Bug release: is when a build is handed to testing team with knowing that defect is present in the release. The priority and severity of bug is low. It is done when customer want the application on the time. Customer can tolerate the bug in the released then the delay in getting the application and the cost involved in removing that bug. These bugs are mentioned in the Release Notes handed to client for the future improvement chances. What is regression testing? Regression Testing: When changes in the code of the software are made to fix the previous bug. Then testing needs to be perform to ensure that it will not generate a new bug in the application and it works as specified and that it has not negatively impacted any functionality that it offered previously. Regression Testing is important because of following reason: - That the application works even after the alteration in the code were made. - The original functionality continues to work as specified even after doing changes in the software application. - The alteration to the software application has not introduced any new bugs. What is data driven testing? Data Driven is an automation testing part in which test input or output values, these values are read from data files. It is performed when the values are changing by the time. The different data files may include data pools, csv files, Excel files. The data is then loaded into variables in recorded or manually coded scripts. For data driven testing we use Parameterzing and Regular expression Technique. Ex: To evaluate login functionality, we use different user name and password combinations, variables are used to access different username and password. The list of username and password are stored in a data table or excel sheet. What is alpha and beta testing? Alpha testing: is performed by the IN-House developers. After alpha testing the software is handed over to software QA team, for additional testing in an environment that is similar to the client environment. Beta testing: It is performed by end user. So that they can make sure that the product is bug free or working as per the requirement. IN-house developers and software QA team perform alpha testing. The public, a few select prospective customers or the general public performs beta testing. What are test driver and test stub and why we need them? - The Stub is called from the software component to be tested. It is used in top down approach. - The driver calls a component to be tested. It is used in bottom up approach. - Both test stub and test driver are dummy software components. We need test stub and test driver because of following reason: - Suppose we want to test the interface between modules A and B and we have developed only module A. So we cannot test module A but if a dummy module is prepare, using that we can test module A. - Now module B cannot send or receive data from module A directly so, in these cases we have to transfer data from one module to another module by some external features. This external feature used is called Driver. What is Monkey testing? Monkey testing is a type of Black Box Testing used mostly at the Unit Level. In this tester enter the data in any format and check the software is not crashing. In this testing we use Smart monkey and Dumb monkey. - Smart monkeys are used for load and stress testing, they will help in finding the bugs. They are very expensive to develop. - Dumb monkey, are important for basic testing. They help in finding those bugs which are having high severity. Dumb monkey are less expensive as compare to Smart monkeys. Example: In phone number filed Symbols are entered. What is Bug Triage? Bug triage is a process to: - Ensure bug report completeness. - Analyze and assign bug to proper component. - Assign bug to proper bug owner. - Set appropriate bug priority. - Adjust bug severity properly. What is Traceability Matrix? Traceability Matrix is a method used to validate the compliance of product with requirements for that product. The requirement is written in a row of the matrix and the columns of the matrix. Now they are used to identify how and where each requirement has been addressed. It is in the form of table that correlates two base lined documents that require a many-to-many relationship. It is used with high level requirement and detailed requirement of the software product to the matching parts of high level design, detailed design, test plan, and test cases. The relationship to the source documents is required for both backward traceability and forward traceability. Explain paradigms for interfacing module. The paradigms for interfacing modules: - Procedure Call Interface: A procedure from one module calls to procedure of another module. The caller can pass data to the called procedure while calling and also the called procedure can pass data to the caller while returning control back to the caller procedure. - Shared Memory: When a block of memory is shared between two modules. The memory block may be allocated by one of the two modules or third module of the same application. - Message Passing Interface: One module generates a message and sends the message to another module. It helps in building up the communication between different process or modules. What are the factors responsible for the estimation of system integration test cycle and total integration time? The number of system integration test cycle and total integration time are determined by the following parameters: - Number of modules in the system. - Relative complexity of the modules. - Relative complexity of the interface between the modules. - Number of modules needed to be clustered together in each test cycle. - Whether the modules to be integrated have been adequately tested before. - Turnaround time for each test-debug-fix cycle. What are the things the tests ensure? Test must ensure that: - The number of parameters sent in a message agrees with the number of parameters expected to receive. - The parameter order in the message match the order expected. - The field sizes and data type match. - When a message is generated from stored data prior to being sent, the message truly reflects the stored data. - When a received message is stored, data copying is consistent with the received message. What is random testing? When test inputs are selected randomly from the input domain of the system, this is Random Testing. Random testing involves following procedure: - The input domain is selected. - Test inputs are selected independently from the domain. -The system under test is executed on these inputs. The inputs constitute a random test set. - The results are compared to the system specification. The test is a failure if any input leads to incorrect results, otherwise it is a success. What are the benefits of Automated Testing? The benefits of Automation Testing are as below: - Test engineer productivity. - Coverage of regression testing. - Re-usability of test cases. - Consistency in testing. - Test interval reduction - Reduced software maintenance cost - Increased test effectiveness What is Agile Testing? Agile Testing means to quickly validation of the client requirements and make the application of good quality user interface. When the build is released to the testing team, testing of the application is started to find the bugs. As a Tester, we need to focus on the customer or end user requirements. We put the efforts to deliver the quality product in spite of short time frame which will further help in reducing the cost of development and test feedback will be implemented in the code which will avoid the defects coming from the end user. Describe Use Case Testing. Use Case: A use case is a description of the process which is performed by the end user for a particular task. Use case contains a sequence of step which is performed by the end user to complete a specific task or a step by step process that describe how the application and end user interact with each other. Use case is written by the user point of view. Use case Testing: the use case testing uses this use case to evaluate the application. So that, the tester can examines all the functionalities of the application. Use case testing cover whole application, tester performs this testing in step by step process to complete one task. What type of tests you perform on the web based application? For web application we perform following time of test: 1. Functionality Testing. 2. Usability Testing. 3. Navigation Testing. 4. Configuration and Compatibility testing. 5. Reliability and Availability Testing. 6. Performance Testing. 7. Load and Stress Testing. 8. Security Testing What is Gantt Chart? A Gantt Chart is used to represent a project schedule that includes duration of individual tasks or phases, their dependencies and ordering. - It displays the start and end points of each task and the percentage of completion of each task - It allows the planner to assess the duration of a project, identify the resources needed, and lay out the order in which tasks need to be performed. - It is useful in managing the dependencies between tasks. - Using Gantt chart each team member can view the product development schedule. How to find all the Bugs during first round of Testing? There could be several reasons for not debugging the entire bug in the first round of testing process. Debugging the showstopper in the first or second build is almost impossible. A found defect can cover up the other defects in the application. The thread which leads to on defect could be redirected to another defect, as the tester find the bug and lock that bug in report and after fixing of those bugs new bugs may also arises. It is difficult to keep testing on a known defective application. That is the reason we cannot find all the bug in first run and also we cannot perform Exhaustive testing. How would you prepare the Test Plan without SRS? We can prepare a test plan directly without having SRS, When the Requirements and URD(User Requirement Document )are available to us. URD is very helpful to determine the requirement of the user. The SRS document only contains the requirement of the user, but tester can also determine the requirement form the product. Without having SRS document we cannot estimate the Testing effort and cost of testing if we do not have SRS. SRS tell us on which platform our software is going to be used and on basis of this we perform the test on the application. Some time end user want to know what type of testing we are going to execute on the application for this we can send our test plan to the client. What is the purpose of test strategy? We need Test Strategy for the following reason: 1. To have a signed, sealed, and delivered document, where the document contains details about the testing methodology, test plan, and test cases. 2. Test strategy document tells us how the software product will be tested. 3. Test strategy document helps to review the test plan with the project team members. 4. It describes the roles, responsibilities and the resources required for the test and schedule. 5. When we create a test strategy document, we have to put into writing any testing issues requiring resolution. 6. The test strategy is decided first, before lower level decisions are made on the test plan, test design, and other testing issues.