Explanation / Rationale

The test cases should be scheduled in priority order, but the schedule must also take account of the dependencies.

The two highest priority test cases (TC1 and TC3) are both dependent on TC4, so the first three test cases should be scheduled as either TC4 – TC1 – TC3 or TC4 – TC3 – TC1 (we have no way to discriminate between TC1 and TC3).
Next, we need to consider the remaining medium priority test case, TC6. TC6 is dependent on TC5, but TC5 is dependent on TC2, so the next two three cases must be scheduled as
TC2 – TC5 – TC6.
This means there are two possible optimal schedules:

• TC4 – TC1 – TC3 – TC2 – TC5 – TC6 or
• TC4 – TC3 – TC1 – TC2 – TC5 – TC6

Thus:
a) Is not correct
b) Is correct
c) Is not correct
d) Is not correct

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. This activity is performed during the test design activity (test design)
b) Is not correct. This activity is performed during the test implementation activity (test implementation)
c) Is not correct. This activity is performed during the test completion activity (test completion)
d) Is correct. This activity is performed during the test analysis activity (test analysis)

Explanation / Rationale

For the input equivalence partitions given, the above used boundary value technique yields the following 8 coverage items:

10°C, 11°C, 15°C, 16°C, 19°C, 20°C, 22°C, 23°C.

Hence, the options have the following boundary value coverage:
a) Is not correct. 4 out of 8 (11, 20 ,22 and 23)
b) Is not correct. 3 out of 8 (15, 19 and 23)
c) Is correct. 5 out of 8 (10, 16, 19, 22 and 23)
d) Is not correct. 3 out of 8 (15, 19 and 22)

Explanation / Rationale

The correct pairings of examples to entry and exit criteria are:

• Entry criteria

o (3) The trading performance test environment has been designed, set-up and verified – example of the need for a test environment to be ready before testing can begin
o (5) The autopilot design specifications have been reviewed and reworked – example of the need for the test basis to be available before testing can begin
o (6) The tax rate calculation component has passed unit testing – example of the need for a test object to have met the exit criteria for a prior level of testing before testing can begin

• Exit criteria

o (1) The original testing budget of $30,000 plus contingency of $7,000 has been spent – example of spending the testing budget being a signal to stop testing
o (2) 96% of planned tests for the drawing package have been executed and the remaining tests are now out of scope – example of all the planned tests being run being a signal to stop testing (normally used alongside the exit criteria on outstanding defects remaining)
o (4) Current status is no outstanding critical defects and two high-priority ones – example of the number of outstanding defects achieving a planned limit being a signal to stop testing (normally used alongside the exit criteria on planned tests being run).

Thus:
a) Is not correct
b) Is not correct
c) Is not correct
d) Is correct

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. The lack of familiarity of the requirements author with the fitness domain is a root cause
b) Is not correct. The lack of training of the tester in state transition testing was one of the root causes of the defect (the developer presumably created the defect, as well)
c) Is correct. The incorrect configuration data represents faulty software in the fitness tracker (a defect), that may cause failures
d) Is not correct. The lack of experience in designing user interfaces for wearable devices is a typical example of a root cause of a defect

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. Defects found early are often much cheaper to remove than defects detected later in the lifecycle
b) Is not correct. Dynamic testing still has its challenging because they find other types of defects
c) Is not correct. This is dynamic testing
d) Is not correct. Static testing is important for safety-critical computer systems

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Exploratory testing is not suitable to speed up tests, which are already specified. It is most useful when there are few or inappropriate specified requirements or significant time pressure on testing
b) Is not correct. The absence of a test charter, which may have been derived from the test analysis, is a poor precondition for the use of exploratory testing
c) Is correct. Exploratory tests should be performed by experienced testers with knowledge of similar applications and technologies
d) Is not correct. Explorative testing alone is not suitable to provide evidence that the test was very intensive, instead the evidence is provided in combination with other test methods

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Testing is context dependent, regardless of it being manual or automated (principle #6), but does not result in detecting a decreasing number of faults as described above
b) Is not correct. Exhaustive testing is impossible, regardless of the amount of effort put into testing (principle #2)
c) Is correct. Principle #5 says “If the same tests are repeated over and over again, eventually these tests no longer find any new defects. To detect new defects, existing tests and test data may need changing, and new tests may need to be written.” Automated regression testing of the same test cases will not bring new findings
d) Is not correct. ”Defect cluster together” (principle #4). A small number of modules usually contain most of the defects, but this does not mean that fewer and fewer defects will be found

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. For a loop construct, statement coverage only requires that all statements within the loop are executed, but decision coverage requires testing of both the conditions where the loop is executed and when it is bypassed
b) Is not correct. For a loop construct, statement coverage only requires that all statements within the loop are executed, but decision coverage requires testing of both the conditions where the loop is executed and when it is bypassed
c) Is not correct. Checklists are based on experience, defect and failure data, knowledge about what is important for the user, and an understanding of why and how software fails, none of which is likely to have led to the inclusion of such a test condition
d) Is not correct. While it is possible that someone might anticipate a developer making the mistaken assumption that there would always be at least one transaction in a month for every account, only decision testing guarantees testing of that condition

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. A crash is clearly noticeable by the user
b) Is not correct. This is a defect, not a failure since there is something wrong in the code. It may not result in a visible or noticeable failure, for example if the changes in the source code file are only in comments
c) Is not correct. The use of wrong input variables may not result in a visible or noticeable failure, for example if nobody uses this particular algorithm; or if the wrong input variable has a similar value to the correct input variable; or if the FALSE result of the algorithm is not used
d) Is not correct. This type of fault will not necessarily lead to a failure; for example, if no one uses this special algorithm

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Statement testing exercises the executable statements in the code, which might result in the absence of certain greetings not being tested
b) Is not correct. Unless the test charter specifically mentioned testing both the presence and the absence of each type of greeting, coverage can be difficult to assess for an exploratory test
c) Is not correct. State transition testing is useful for situations where the test object responds differently to an input depending on current conditions or previous history, but in this case the test object must decide whether the current date matches a particular milestone and thus whether to display the relevant greeting
d) Is correct. Decision testing involves test cases that follow the control flows that occur from a decision point, which in this case would be deciding whether a greeting should or should not be given

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Static testing does not involve execution of the test object
b) Is not correct. Some static tests involve the use of a tool, especially static analysis, but reviews (such as the activity described here) do not necessarily involve the use of a tool
c) Is not correct. The review activity described here is part of a static test, but defects found in static tests are usually cheaper than those found in dynamic testing
d) Is correct. Static testing does not involve execution of the test object

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. While deviation from standards is a typical, we are not given any standard with which the user stories should comply
b) Is correct. Contradiction is a typical requirements defect. AC3 and AC5 conflict if the Rod is touched to an object that extends more than 1 meter in any direction from the point at which touched, since AC1 does not limit the size of the objects to be touched
c) Is not correct. While security vulnerabilities are typical defects, there is nothing here related to security
d) Is not correct. While test coverage gaps are typical defects, including missing tests for acceptance criteria, we are not provided with any information about which tests do and do not exist

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Estimates may be updated as more information becomes available, but estimates are needed to assist with planning before the testing starts
b) Is not correct. In the expert-based approach, the experts need to be experts in testing, not in using the test object
c) Is correct. Test Managers, who will be leading testers doing the testing, are considered experts in their respective areas and suitable for estimating the necessary resources needed
d) Is not correct. While it is useful to know the testing costs from previous projects, a more sophisticated approach is needed than simply taking an average of past projects (the new project may not be like the previous projects, e.g., it may be far larger or far smaller than previous projects)

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Definition of feature according to glossary
b) Is correct. From glossary
c) Is not correct. Definition of functionality suitability according to glossary
d) Is not correct. Like Definition of Decision table testing according to glossary

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. This is an objective listed
b) Is not correct. This is debugging
c) Is not correct. This is an activity within the test execution group of activities within the test process
d) Is not correct. This is part of debugging

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. Making decisions about what to test are documented in the test plan. This means when you are planning the test and there are budget limitations, prioritizing is needed; what should be tested and what should be omitted
b) Is not correct. Test monitoring and control
c) Is not correct. Common test metrics
d) Is not correct. It is a part of test analysis

Explanation / Rationale

Performance testing is a test type, not a test level. Component testing focuses on defects in separately testable modules or objects, integration testing on defects in interfaces and interactions, system testing on defects in the whole test object, and acceptance testing is not typically focused on identifying defects.

Thus:
a) Is not correct
b) Is not correct
c) Is correct
d) Is not correct

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. If inadequate developer testing were the problem, the confirmation test would not pass in step 3
b) Is not correct. The same tester who successfully performed the confirmation test in step 3 is repeating it in step 5
c) Is correct. Configuration management maintains the integrity of the software. If a test that passes in step 3 fails in step 5, then something is different between those two steps. One possible difference is the test object, the option listed here. Another possible difference is the between the development environment and the test environment, but that is not an option listed here
d) Is not correct. If the developers were not fixing the defect, the confirmation test would not pass in step 3

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. The statement is true. Achieving 100% decision coverage guarantees 100% statement coverage
b) Is not correct. The statement is false because achieving 100 % statement coverage does not in any case mean that the decision coverage is 100%
c) Is not correct. The statement is false because we can only do statements about 100% values
d) Is not correct. The statement is false

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Relevant for integration testing
b) Is not correct. Relevant for component testing
c) Is correct. For acceptance testing, tests are designed to cover all workflows defined in the functional requirements documents.
d) Is not correct. Relevant for system testing

Explanation / Rationale

Test 01.001 must come first, followed by 01.002, to satisfy dependencies. Afterwards, 01.004 and 01.003 should be run in either order, followed by 01.005, to satisfy priority.
Thus:
a) Is not correct
b) Is correct
c) Is not correct
d) Is not correct

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. This is error guessing
b) Is not correct. This is black-box test technique
c) Is correct. See reasons from incorrect answers
d) Is not correct. This is exploratory testing

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. This is an objective for a pilot, but you have achieved it because you understand the tool much better due to the pilot
b) Is not correct. This is an objective for a pilot, but you have achieved it because you have tailoring your testing processes
c) Is not correct. This is an objective for a pilot, but you have achieved it because you have standardized an approach to using the tool and its associated work products
d) Is correct. Assessing the benefits and configuring the metrics collection are the two objectives missing from this list

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. The facilitator or moderator runs the review meetings
b) Is not correct. This is not a role name for a formal review participant
c) Is not correct. The facilitator or moderator runs the review meetings
d) Is not correct. The facilitator or moderator runs the review meetings

Explanation / Rationale

Considering the potential inconsistencies:

• 6-10 – If librarians should get system responses within 5 seconds, it is NOT inconsistent for borrowers to get system responses within 3 seconds.
• 6-15 - If librarians should get system responses within 5 seconds, it is inconsistent for all users to get system responses within 3 seconds.
• 7-12 – If borrowers can borrow a maximum of 3 books at one time it is NOT inconsistent for them to also reserve books (if they are on-loan).
• 9-11 – If a borrower can be fined for failing to return a book within 3 weeks it is inconsistent for them to also be allowed to borrow a book at no cost for a maximum of 4 weeks – as the length of valid loans are different.

Of the potential inconsistencies, 6-15 and 9-11 are valid inconsistencies.

Thus:
a) Is not correct
b) Is correct
c) Is not correct
d) Is not correct

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. A path through source code is one potential route through the code from the entry point to the exit point that could exercise a range of decision outcomes. Two different paths may exercise all but one of the same decision outcomes, and by just changing a single decision outcome a new path is followed. Test cases that would achieve decision coverage are typically a tiny subset of the test cases that would achieve path coverage. In practice, most non-trivial programs (and all programs with unconstrained loops, such as ‘while’ loops) have a potentially infinite number of possible paths through them and so measuring the percentage covered is practically infeasible
b) Is not correct. Coverage of business flows can be a focus of use case testing, but use cases rarely cover a single component. It may be possible to cover the decisions within business flows, but only if they were specified in enough detail, however this option only suggests coverage of “business flows” as a whole. Even if business flows would cover some decisions, the measure “Decision Coverage” don’t measure the percentage of business flows, but the percentage of decision outcomes exercised by the business flows
c) Is not correct. Achieving full decision coverage does require all ‘if’ statements to be exercised with both true and false outcomes, however, there are typically several other decision points in the code (e.g., ‘case’ statements and the code controlling loops) that also need to be taken into consideration when measuring decision coverage
d) Is correct. Decision coverage is a measure of the proportion of decision outcomes exercised (normally presented as a percentage)

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Contradiction to principle 3: “Early testing saves time and money”
b) Is correct. This is one objective of testing
c) Is not correct. Principle #2 states that exhaustive testing is impossible, so one can never prove that all defects were identified
d) Is not correct. To make an assessment whether a defect will cause a failure or not, one must detect the defect first. Saying that no remaining defect will cause a failure implicitly means that all defects were found. This again contradicts principle #2

Explanation / Rationale

Traceability assists with:

• Selecting regression tests in terms of analyzing the impact of changes (1D)
• Evaluating completeness of test execution which makes testing auditable (2B)
• Identifying which user stories have open defect reports which improves understandability of test status reports to include status of test basis items (3A)
• Evaluating whether the number of tests for each requirement is consistent with the level of product risk which provides information to assess test process quality (i.e., alignment of test effort with risk) (4C)

Thus:
a) Is not correct
b) Is not correct
c) Is not correct
d) Is correct

Explanation / Rationale

The complete decision table is shown below:

To achieve full coverage, test cases covering rules 2 and 3 are needed. DT4 satisfies the constraints of rule 2, while DT2 satisfies the constraints of rule 3.

Thus:
a) Is not correct
b) Is not correct
c) Is correct
d) Is not correct

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. During planning it is decided whether checklists are used. The preparation of the checklists is not part of the planning. In addition, the reviewers are neither involved in the planning, nor responsible for the creation of the checklists
b) Is not correct. During issue communication, any potential defects that have been identified in the individual review are communicated. The completion of checklists by the reviewers already takes place, if at all, during individual review
c) Is not correct. During review session, the reviewers communicate any potential defects of the work product that they did identify during the individual review. Defect reports are only created during the fixing and reporting activity
d) Is correct. Initiating the review (“Kick-off”) involves distributing the work product and other materials, like checklists

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. The metrics-based approach: estimating the testing effort based on metrics of former similar projects or based on typical values
b) Is not correct. This is expert-based approach: estimating the tasks based on estimates made by the owners of the tasks or by experts
c) Is not correct. This is expert-based approach: estimating the tasks based on estimates made by the responsible team of the tasks or by experts
d) Is not correct. This is expert-based approach: estimating the tasks based on estimates made by the owners of the tasks or by experts

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Testing does not identify the source of defects, debugging identifies the source of defects
b) Is correct. Dynamic testing can show failures that are caused by defects in the software. Debugging eliminates the defects, which are the source of failures
c) Is not correct. Testing does not remove faults, but debugging removes faults, which is synonyms for defects, that may cause the failures
d) Is not correct. Dynamic testing does not directly prevent the causes of failures (defects) but detects the presence of defects

Explanation / Rationale

Considering each of the pieces of information:

1. Degree of impact (severity) of the defect – the developers are already aware of the problem and are waiting to fix it, so this is a less important piece of information.
2. Identification of the test object – as the developers are already aware of the problem and you are performing system testing, and you have already provided the version of the system you are testing you can assume they know the object that was being tested, so this is a less important piece of information.
3. Details of the test environment – the set-up of the test environment may have a noticeable effect on the test results, and detailed information should be provided, so this is an important piece of information.
4. Urgency/priority to fix – the developers are already aware of the problem and are waiting to fix it, so this is a less important piece of information.
5. Actual results – the actual results may well help the developers to determine what is going wrong with the system, so this is an important piece of information.
6. Reference to test case specification – this will show the developers the tests you ran, including the test inputs that caused the system to fail (and expected results), so this is an important piece of information.

Thus:
a) Is not correct
b) Is not correct
c) Is not correct
d) Is correct

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Although the description of regression testing is largely correct, the description of confirmation testing (which should be testing a defect has been fixed) is not correct
b) Is correct. The descriptions of both confirmation and regression testing match the intent of those in the syllabus
c) Is not correct. Although the description of regression testing is largely correct, the description of confirmation testing (re-running all previously run tests to get the same results) is not correct, as the purpose of confirmation testing is to check that tests that previously failed now pass (the fix worked)
d) Is not correct. Although the description of confirmation testing is largely correct, the description of regression testing (re-running tests that previously failed) is not correct (this is a more detailed description of confirmation testing)

Explanation / Rationale

There are three equivalence partitions, with the boundaries as shown:

• Invalid too low (0.4 and below)
• Valid (0.5 to 25.0)
• Invalid too high (25.1 and above)

Thus:
a) Is not correct. None of those four boundary values are included in this set of tests. These tests do cover the equivalence partitions
b) Is not correct. All these four boundary values are included in this set of tests, but two additional values are included, one for each boundary. These are the values associated with three-point boundary value analysis
c) Is correct. Each of those four two-point boundary values are included in this set of tests
d) Is not correct. These four values are all included in the valid partition

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. Percentage of test cases prepared is a common metric during test preparation while percentage of test cases passed, failed, not run, etc., are common during test execution
b) Is not correct. Defect reports are typically filed during test execution, based on failures found
c) Is not correct. Test environment preparation is part implementation and would generally be complete before test execution
d) Is not correct. Defects are typically reported during test execution, based on failures found, so the cost to find the next defect is available during test execution only

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. This information has been defined earlier in the test project
b) Is not correct. This information is included in a test report: information on what occurred during a test period
c) Is not correct. This information is included in a test report:

• Status of testing and product quality with respect to the exit criteria or definition of done
• Metrics of defects, test cases, test coverage, activity progress, and resource consumption

d) Is not correct. This information is included in a test report: Information and metrics to support recommendations and decisions about future actions, such as an assessment of defects remaining, the economic benefit of continued testing, outstanding risks, and the level of confidence in the tested software

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is not correct. Exploratory testing is often carried out when timescales are short, so making in-depth investigations of the background of the test object is unlikely
b) Is correct. Glossary definition
c) Is not correct. Based on the Glossary definition of session-based testing, but with test execution replaced by test analysis
d) Is not correct. Glossary definition of experience-based testing

Explanation / Rationale

a) Is correct. Exploratory testing is a form of experience-based testing, which benefits from the skills and experience of the tester
b) b) Is not correct. Exploratory testing is useful to complement formal testing techniques
c) Is not correct. In session-based test management, exploratory testing is conducted within a defined time-box, and the tester uses a test charter containing test objectives to guide the testing
d) Is not correct. Exploratory testing can incorporate the use of other black-box, white-box, and experience-based techniques referenced in this syllabus