QA testing quality assurance interview questions and answers

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Software Testing FAQ
What is quality assurance?
The set of support activities (including facilitation, training, measurement and analysis) needed to
provide adequate confidence that processes are established and continuously improved in order to
produce products that meet specifications and fit for use.
What is the purpose of the testing?
Testing provides information whether or not a certain product meets the requirements.
What is the difference between QA and testing?
Quality Assurance is that set of activities that are carried out to set standards and to monitor and
improve performance so that the care provided is as effective and as safe as possible. Testing
provides information whether or not a certain product meets the requirements. It also provides
information where the product fails to meet the requirements.
What is software quality'?
OR
Define software quality for me, as you understand it?
Quality software is reasonably bug-free, delivered on time and within budget, meets
requirements and/or expectations, and is maintainable. However, quality is obviously a
subjective term. It will depend on who the 'customer' is and their overall influence in the
scheme of things. Each type of 'customer' will have their own slant on 'quality' - the
accounting department might define quality in terms of profits while an end-user might
define quality as user-friendly and bug-free.
What's the role of documentation in QA?
Critical. (Note that documentation can be electronic, not necessarily paper.) QA practices
should be documented such that they are repeatable. Specifications, designs, business rules,
inspection reports, configurations, code changes, test plans, test cases, bug reports, user
manuals, etc. should all be documented. There should ideally be a system for easily finding
and obtaining documents and determining what documentation will have a particular piece
of information. Change management for documentation should be used if possible.
Explain the software development lifecycle.
There are seven stages of the software development lifecycle
1. Initiate the project – The users identify their Business requirements.
2. Define the project – The software development team translates the business
requirements into system specifications and put together into System Specification
Document.

2. 3. Design the system – The System Architecture Team designs the system and write
Functional Design Document. During design phase general solutions re hypothesized
and data and process structures are organized.
4. Build the system – The System Specifications and design documents are given to the
development team code the modules by following the Requirements and Design
document.
5. Test the system - The test team develops the test plan following the requirements. The
software is build and installed on the test platform after developers have completed
development and Unit Testing. The testers test the software by following the test plan.
6. Deploy the system – After the user-acceptance testing and certification of the software,
it is installed on the production platform. Demos and training are given to the users.
7. Support the system - After the software is in production, the maintenance phase of the
life begins. During this phase the development team works with the development
document staff to modify and enhance the application and the test team works with the
test documentation staff to verify and validate the changes and enhancement to the
application software.
At what stage of the SDLC does testing begin in your opinion?
QA process starts from the second phase of the Software Development Life Cycle i.e. Define
the System. Actual Product testing will be done on Test the system phase (Phase-5). During
this phase test team will verify the actual results against expected results.
Explain the pre testing phase, acceptance testing and testing phase.
Pre testing Phase:
1. Review the requirements document for the testability: Tester will use the requirement
document to write the test cases.
2. Establishing the hard freeze date: Hard freeze date is a date after which system test
team will not accept any more software and documentation changes from development
team, unless they are fixes of severity 1 MR’s. The date is scheduled so that product test
team will have time for final regression.
3. Writing master test plan: It is written by the lead tester or test coordinator. Master test
plan includes entire testing plan, testing resources and testing strategy.
4. Setting up MR Tool: The MR tool must be set as soon as you know of the different
modules in the product, the developers and testers on the product, the hardware
platform, and operating system testing will be done.
This information will be available upon the completion of the first draft of the
architecture document. Both testers and developers are trained how to use the system.
5. Setting up the test environment: The test environment is set on separate machines,
database and network. This task is performed by the technical support team. First time
it takes some time, Afterwards the same environment can be used by the later releases.
6. Writing the test plan and test cases: Template and the tool is decided to write the test
plan, test cases and test procedures. Expected results are organized in the test plan
according to the feature categories specified in the requirement document. For each
feature positive and negative test cases are written. Writing test plan requires the
complete understanding of the product and its interfaces with other systems. After test
plan is completed, a walkthrough is conducted with the developers and design team
members to baseline the test plan document.
7. Setting up the test automation tool: Planning of test strategy on how to automate the
testing. Which test cases will be executed for regression testing. Not all the test cases
will be executed during regression testing.

3. 8. Identify acceptance test cases: Select subsets that are expected on the first day of system
test. These tests must pass to accept the product in the system test.
Acceptance testing phase:
1. When the product enters system test, check it has completed integration test and must
meet the integration test exit criteria.
2. Check integration exit criteria and product test entrance criteria in the master test plan
or test strategy documents.
3. Check the integration testing sign off criteria sheet.
4. Coordinate release with product development.
5. How the code will be migrated from development environment to the test environment.
6. Installation and acceptance testing.
Product testing phase:
1. Running the test: Execution of test cases and verify if actual functionality of application
matches the expected results.
2. Initial manual testing is recommended to isolate unexpected system behavior. Once
application is stable automated regression test could be generated.
3. Issue MR’s upon detection of the bugs.
What is the value of a testing group? How do you justify your work and budget?
All software products contain defects/bugs, despite the best efforts of their development
teams. It is important for an outside party (one who is not developer) to test the product
from a viewpoint that is more objective and representative of the product user.
Testing group test the software from the requirements point of view or what is required by
the user. Testers job is to examine a program and see if it does not do what it is
supposed to do and also see what it does what it is not supposed to do.
What is master test plan? What it contains? Who is responsible for writing it?
OR
What is a test plan? Who is responsible for writing it? What it contains.
OR
What's a 'test plan'? What did you include in a test plan?
A software project test plan is a document that describes the objectives, scope, approach,
and focus of a software testing effort. The process of preparing a test plan is a useful way to
think through the efforts needed to validate the acceptability of a software product. The
completed document will help people outside the test group understand the 'why' and 'how'
of product validation. It should be thorough enough to be useful but not so thorough that no
one outside the test group will read it. The following are some of the items that might be
included in a test plan, depending on the particular project:
• Title
• Identification of software including version/release numbers
• Revision history of document including authors, dates, approvals
• Table of Contents
• Purpose of document, intended audience
• Objective of testing effort
• Software product overview

4. • Relevant related document list, such as requirements, design documents, other test
plans, etc.
• Relevant standards or legal requirements
• Trace ability requirements
• Relevant naming conventions and identifier conventions
• Overall software project organization and personnel/contact-info/responsibilties
• Test organization and personnel/contact-info/responsibilities
• Assumptions and dependencies
• Project risk analysis
• Testing priorities and focus
• Scope and limitations of testing
• Test outline - a decomposition of the test approach by test type, feature, functionality,
process, system, module, etc. as applicable
• Outline of data input equivalence classes, boundary value analysis, error classes
• Test environment - hardware, operating systems, other required software, data
configurations, interfaces to other systems
• Test environment validity analysis - differences between the test and production systems
and their impact on test validity.
• Test environment setup and configuration issues
• Software migration processes
• Software CM processes
• Test data setup requirements
• Database setup requirements
• Outline of system-logging/error-logging/other capabilities, and tools such as screen
capture software, that will be used to help describe and report bugs
• Discussion of any specialized software or hardware tools that will be used by testers to
help track the cause or source of bugs
• Test automation - justification and overview
• Test tools to be used, including versions, patches, etc.
• Test script/test code maintenance processes and version control
• Problem tracking and resolution - tools and processes
• Project test metrics to be used
• Reporting requirements and testing deliverables
• Software entrance and exit criteria
• Initial sanity testing period and criteria
• Test suspension and restart criteria
• Personnel allocation
• Personnel pre-training needs
• Test site/location
• Outside test organizations to be utilized and their purpose, responsibilties, deliverables,
contact persons, and coordination issues
• Relevant proprietary, classified, security, and licensing issues.
• Open issues
• Appendix - glossary, acronyms, etc.
The team-lead or a Sr. QA Analyst is responsible to write this document.

5. Why is test plan a controlled document?
Because it controls the entire testing process. Testers have to follow this test plan during the
entire testing process.
What information you need to formulate test plan?
Need the Business requirement document to prepare the test plan.
What are the entrance and exit criteria in the system test?
Entrance and exit criteria of each testing phase is written in the master test plan.
Enterence Criteria:
- Integration exit criteria have been successfully met.
- All installation documents are completed.
- All shippable software has been successfully built
- Syate, test plan is baselined by completing the walkthrough of the test plan.
- Test environment should be setup.
- All severity 1 MR’s of integration test phase should be closed.
Exit Criteria:
- All the test cases in the test plan should be executed.
- All MR’s/defects are either closed or deferred.
- Regression testing cycle should be executed after closing the MR’s.
- All documents are reviewed, finilized and signed-off.
If there are no requirements, how will you write your test plan?
If there are no requirements we try to gather as much details as possible from:
• Business Analysts
• Developers (If accessible)
• Previous Version documentation (if any)
• Stake holders (If accessible)
• Prototypes.
What is White box testing/unit testing?
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.
Difference between Black and White box testing?
Black box testing: Functional testing based on requirements with no knowledge of the
internal program structure or data. Also known as closed-box testing.
White Box testing: Testing approaches that examine the program structure and device test
data from the program logic.
What are the roles of glass-box and black-box testing tools?
Glass-box testing also called as white-box testing refers to testing, with detailed knowledge
of the modules internals. Thus these tools concentrate more on the algorithms, data
structures used in development of modules. These tools perform testing on individual

6. modules more likely than the whole application. Black-Box testing tools refer to testing the
interface, functionality and performance testing of the system module and the whole system.
What is Black box testing?
Black Box testing is also called system testing which is performed by the testers. Here the
features and requirements of the product as described in the requirement document are
tested.
What is Integration testing?
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.
What knowledge you require to do white box, integration and black box testing?
For white box testing you need to understand the internals of the module like data
structures and algorithms and have access to the source code and for black box testing only
understanding/functionality of the application.
What is Regression testing?
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..
Why do we do regression testing?
In any application new functionalities can be added so the application has to be tested to see
whether the added functionalities have affected the existing functionalities or not. Here
instead of retesting all the existing functionalities baseline scripts created for these can be
rerun and tested.
How do we regression testing?
Various automation-testing tools can be used to perform regression testing like WinRunner,
Rational Robot and Silk Test.
What are positive scenarios?
Testing to see whether the application is doing what it is supposed to do.
What are negative scenarios?
Testing to see whether the application is not doing what it is not suppose to do.
What is the difference between regression automation tool and performance automation tool?
Regression testing tools capture test and play them back at a later time. The capture and
playback feature is fundamental to regression testing.
Performance testing tool determine the load a server can handle. And must have feature to
stimulate many users from one machine, scheduling and synchronize different users, able to
measure the network load under different number of simulated users.
What is the difference between exception and validation testing?

7. Validation testing aims to demonstrate that the software functions in a manner that can be
reasonably expected by the customer. Testing the software in conformance to the Software
Requirements Specifications.
Exception testing deals with handling the exceptions (unexpected events) while the AUT is
run. Basically this testing involves how to change the control flow of the AUT when an
exception arises.
What is user acceptance testing?
What is manual testing and what is automated testing?
What is smoke testing?
What is soak testing?
What is stress testing, performance testing, Security testing, Recovery testing and volume
testing.
What is MR?
MR is a Modification Request also known as Defect Report, a request to modify the
program so that program does what it is supposed to do.
Why you write MR?
MR is written for reporting problems/errors or suggestions in the software.
What information does MR contain?
OR
Describe me to the basic elements you put in a defect report?
OR
What is the procedure for bug reporting?
The bug needs to be communicated and assigned to developers that can fix it. After the
problem is resolved, fixes should be re-tested, and determinations made regarding
requirements for regression testing to check that fixes didn't create problems elsewhere. If a
problem-tracking system is in place, it should encapsulate these processes. A variety of
commercial problem-tracking/management software tools are available.
The following are items to consider in the tracking process:
• Complete information such that developers can understand the bug, get an idea of its
severity, and reproduce it if necessary.
• Current bug status (e.g., 'Released for Retest', 'New', etc.)
• The application name or identifier and version
• The function, module, feature, object, screen, etc. where the bug occurred
• Environment specifics, system, platform, relevant hardware specifics
• Test case name/number/identifier
• One-line bug description
• Full bug description
• Description of steps needed to reproduce the bug if not covered by a test case or if the
developer doesn't have easy access to the test case/test script/test tool
• Names and/or descriptions of file/data/messages/etc. used in test

8. • File excerpts/error messages/log file excerpts/screen shots/test tool logs that would be
helpful in finding the cause of the problem
• Severity estimate (a 5-level range such as 1-5 or 'critical'-to-'low' is common)
• Was the bug reproducible?
• Tester name
• Test date
• Bug reporting date
• Name of developer/group/organization the problem is assigned to
• Description of problem cause
• Description of fix
• Code section/file/module/class/method that was fixed
• Date of fix
• Application version that contains the fix
• Tester responsible for retest
• Retest date
• Retest results
• Regression testing requirements
• Tester responsible for regression tests
• Regression testing results
Which MR tool you used to write MR?
What criteria you will follow to assign severity and due date to the MR?
If the functionality of an application had an inbuilt bug because of which the test script
fails, would you automate the test?
You find a bug and the developer says “It’s not possible” what do u do?
How do you help developer to track the fault s in the software?
What are the different types of MRs?
What is the role of a bug tracking system?
What is a successful product?
What Process/Methodologies are you familiar with?
What are CMM and CMMI? What is the difference?
What you will do during the first day of job?
What was the test team hierarchy?
What are the different automation tools you know?
Automation tools provided by Mercury Interactive – Quick Test Professionl, WinRunner,
LoadRunner; Rational – Rational Robot; Segue- SilkTest.
What is ODBC?
Did you ever have problems working with developers?
Describe your experience with code analyzers?

9. How do you survive chaos?
Tell me about the worst boss you’ve ever had.
What do you like about Windows?
How will you describe testing activities?
What is good code?
How you will begin improve the QA process?
What is UML and how it is used for testing?
The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the industry-standard language for specifying,
visualizing, constructing, and documenting the artifacts of software systems. It simplifies
the complex process of software design, making a "blueprint" for construction. UML state
charts provide a solid basis for test generation in a form that can be easily manipulated.
This technique includes coverage criteria that enable highly effective tests to be developed.
A tool has been developed that uses UML state charts produced by Rational Software
Corporation's Rational Rose tool to generate test data.
When should testing be stopped?
When do you start developing your automation tests?
What are benefits of the test automation?
Describe some problems that you had with automation testing tools
Can test automation improver test effectiveness?
What are the main use of test automation?
Does automation replace manual testing?
How will you choose a tool for test automation?
OR
How we decide which automation tool we are going to use for the regression testing?
What could wrong with automation testing?
What type of scripting techniques for test automation do you know?
What are good principles for test scripts?
What type of document do you need for QA, QC and testing?
What are the properties of a good requirement?
Have you ever written test cases or did you just execute those written by others?

10. How do you determine what to test?
How do you decide when you have ‘tested enough?’
Realising you won’t be able to test everything-how do you decide what to test first? OR
What if there isn't enough time for thorough testing?
Where do you get your expected results?
If automating-what is your process for determining what to automate and in what order?
OR
Can you automate all the test scripts? Explain ? OR
How do you plan test automation? OR
What criteria do you use when determining when to automate a test or leave it manual?
1. Test that need to be run for every build of the application
2. Tests that use multiple data values for the same actions( data driven tests)
3. Tests that require detailed information from application internals
4. Stress/ load testing
If you’re given a program that will average student grades, what kinds of inputs would you
use?
Name of student, Subject, Score
How do you go about testing a project?
1. Analyze user requirement documents and other documents like software specifications,
design document etc.
2. Write master test plan which describe the scope, objective, strategy, risk/contingencies,
resources
3. Write system test plan and detailed test cases
4. Execute test cases manually and compare actual results against expected results.
5. Identify mismatches, report defect to the development team using defect reporting tool.
6. Track defect, perform regression test to verify that defect is fixed and did not disturb
other parts of the application.
7. Once all the defects are closed and application is stabilized, automate the test scripts for
regression and performance testing.
How do you go about testing a web application?
.
What is configuration management? Tools used?
What are Individual test case and Workflow test case? Why we do workflow scenarios
How did you use automating testing tools in your job?
What is data-driven automation?
Describe me the difference between validation and verification?

11. Is coding required in Regression testing tools?
What do you mean by “set up the test environment and provide full platform support?
What are the two ways to copy a file in windows?
Were you able to meet deadlines?
What is test Metrics?
What is the use of Metrics?
If you have shortage of time, how would you prioritize you testing?
Use risk analysis to determine where testing should be focused. Since it's rarely possible to
test every possible aspect of an application, every possible combination of events, every
dependency, or everything that could go wrong, risk analysis is appropriate to most
software development projects. Considerations can include:
• Which functionality is most important to the project's intended purpose?
• Which functionality is most visible to the user?
• Which functionality has the largest safety impact?
• Which functionality has the largest financial impact on users?
• Which aspects of the application are most important to the customer?
• Which aspects of the application can be tested early in the development cycle?
• Which parts of the code are most complex, and thus most subject to errors?
• Which parts of the application were developed in rush or panic mode?
• Which aspects of similar/related previous projects caused problems?
• Which aspects of similar/related previous projects had large maintenance expenses?
• Which parts of the requirements and design are unclear or poorly thought out?
• What do the developers think are the highest-risk aspects of the application?
• What kinds of problems would cause the worst publicity?
• What kinds of problems would cause the most customer service complaints?
• What kinds of tests could easily cover multiple functionalities?
• Which tests will have the best high-risk-coverage to time-required ratio?
What is the impact of environment on the actual results of performance testing?
What is a pre-condition data?
What are the different documents in QA?
How do you rate yourself in software testing
Is defect resolution a technical skill or interpersonal skill from QA view point?
What is End to End business logic testing?

12. What is the task bar and where does it reside?
How do you analyze your test results? what metrics do you try to provide?
OR
How do you view test results?
If you come onboard, give me a general idea of what your first overall tasks will be as far as
as starting a quality effort?
Try to learn about the application, Environment and Prototypes to have the better
understanding of application and existing testing efforts
How do you differentiate the roles of Quality Assurance Manager and Project Manager?
What do you like about QA?
Who in the company is responsible for Quality?
Should we test every possible combination/scenario for a program?
What is client-server architecture?
Client-server architecture, a client is defined as a requester of services and a server is
defined as the provider of services. Communication takes place in the form a request
message from the client to the server asking for some work to be done. Then the server does
the work and sends back the reply.
How Intranet is different from client-server?
What is three-tier and multi-tier architecture?
What is Internet?
What is Intranet?
What is Extranet?
What is ISO-9000?
What is QMO?
What is Object Oriented model?
What is Procedural model?
What is an Object?
What is class?
What is encapsulation? Give one example.

13. What is inheritance? Give example.
What is the difference about web-testing and client server testing?
Is a “Fast database retrieval rate” a testable requirement?
What development model should programmers and the test group use?
What are the key challenges of load testing?
Have you done explanatory or specification-driven testing?
What is the role of QA in development project?
How do you promote the concept of phase containment and defect prevention?
What is Walkthrough?
What is inspection?
What is Software Review?
What if the application has functionality that wasn't in the requirements?
Build Verification Test (BVT)
1. What is verification?
2. What is validation?
3. What is a walkthrough?
4. What is quality?
5. What is good code?
6. What is good design?
7. What is software life cycle?
.
8. What is the role of documentation in QA?
9. What about requirements?

14. 10. What is a test plan?
11. What is a test case?
12. What is software quality assurance?
A: Software Quality Assurance, is oriented to *prevention*. It involves the entire software
development process. Prevention is monitoring and improving the process, making sure any
agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed and ensuring problems are found and dealt
with.
13. What is quality assurance?
.
14. Standards and templates - what is supposed to be in a document?
15. How do test case templates look like?
16. Process and procedures - why follow them?
18. How do you create a test strategy?
19. What is the general testing process?
20. What is a test schedule?
21. What are the different levels of testing?
22. What is black box testing?
23. What is white box testing?
24. What is unit testing?
25. What is functional testing?
26. What is integration testing?
27. What is incremental integration testing?
28. What is system testing?
29. What is Gray Box testing?
30. What is end-to-end testing?
31. What is regression testing?
32. What is sanity testing?

15. 33. What is performance testing?
34. What is load testing?
35. What is stress testing?
36. What is recovery/error testing?
37. What is compatibility testing?
38. What is acceptance testing?
39. What is alpha testing?
40. What is beta testing?
41. What is Traceability matrix?
42. What is configuration management?
43. What can be done if requirements are changing continuously?
44. What if the application has functionality that wasn't in the requirements?
45. Why do you recommend that we test during the design phase?
46. What makes a good test engineer?
A: Has a "test to break" attitude,
• Takes the point of view of the customer,
• Has a strong desire for quality,
• Has an attention to detail, He's also
• Tactful and diplomatic and
• Has good a communication skill, both oral and written. And he
• Has previous software development experience, too.
47. Why are there so many software bugs?
48. Give me five common problems that occur during software development.
49. What should be done after a bug is found?
50. What if the software is so buggy it can't be tested at all?

16. 51. How do you know when to stop testing?
52. What if the project isn't big enough to justify extensive testing?
What’s the role of a QA in a company that produces software?
QA is responsible for managing, implementing, maintaining and continuously
improving the Processes the Company and enables internal projects towards process maturity and
facilitates process improvements and innovations in the organization. Tester is responsible for
carrying the testing effort in the company.
Who writes business requirements? What you do when you have BRD?
Business Analyst writes the Business Requirements. Business requirements (BR) are sent to
the software architect (SA) for validation. SA after understanding the BR makes use cases and
UML diagrams and forwards them to QA manager. QA manager based on scope, BR, use case &
UML diagram writes the overall testing strategy & high-level test cases and forward them to
testers.
What is the difference between SRS and BRS?
BRS is a document, which contains the requirements of a customer during initial phase. It is
prepared by Business Analyst. It plays a vital role in all the phases of SDLC. SRS is also a
document which is prepared on the basis of BRS. It is prepared by System Analyst/Project
manager. It mainly contains tentative plan, technological selection etc.
What are the exit and entry criteria in a test plan?
Exit criteria define when u stops the testing. It defines interims the following: All bug status cycle
are closed, all functionalities are tested, and all high and medium bugs are resolved. Entry
criteria define entry of test execution. It defines interims the following: Test environment
established, Builder received from developer, Test case prepared and reviewed.

17. Sample Testing Plan
A testing plan should include:
Software development lifecycle
There are seven stages of the software development lifecycle
8. Initiate the project – The users identify their Business requirements.
9. Define the project – The software development team translates the business
requirements into system specifications and put together into System Specification
Document.
10. Design the system – The System Architecture Team designs the system and write
Functional Design Document. During design phase general solutions re hypothesized
and data and process structures are organized.
11. Build the system – The System Specifications and design documents are given to the
development team code the modules by following the Requirements and Design
document.
12. Test the system - The test team develops the test plan following the requirements. The
software is build and installed on the test platform after developers have completed
development and Unit Testing. The testers test the software by following the test
plan.
13. Deploy the system – After the user-acceptance testing and certification of the
software, it is installed on the production platform. Demos and training are given to
the users.
14. Support the system - After the software is in production, the maintenance phase of the
life begins. During this phase the development team works with the development
document staff to modify and enhance the application and the test team works with
the test documentation staff to verify and validate the changes and enhancement to
the application software.
QA process starts from the second phase of the Software Development Life Cycle i.e.
Define the System. Actual Product testing will be done on Test the system phase (Phase-
5). During this phase test team will verify the actual results against expected results.
Test plan
A software project test plan is a document that describes the objectives, scope, approach,
and focus of a software testing effort.
• Outside test organizations to be utilized and their purpose, responsibilities,
deliverables, contact persons, and coordination issues
Need the Business requirement document to prepare the test plan. Test plan controls the
entire testing process. Testers have to follow this test plan during the entire testing
process. Entrance and exit criteria of each testing phase is written in the master test plan.
Enterence Criteria:
- Integration exit criteria have been successfully met.
- All installation documents are completed.

18. - All shippable software has been successfully built
- System, test plan is base lined by completing the walkthrough of the test plan.
- Test environment should be setup.
- All severity 1 MR’s of integration test phase should be closed.
Exit Criteria:
- All the test cases in the test plan should be executed.
- All MR’s/defects are either closed or deferred.
- Regression testing cycle should be executed after closing the MR’s.
- All documents are reviewed, finilized and signed-off.
White box testing/unit testing
Black box testing
Knowledge require to do white box and black box testing
What is backend and front end testing?
Testing Types:
2. What is the difference between verifying and validating data?
3. How can an object recognition problem be resolved?
4. How do we calculate bug rate?
5. How do you ensure comprehensive test coverage?
6. When do you know testing is over?
7. What is QA methodology and what environment would you use to do your QA testing?
9. What is Release acceptance testing?
10. What is system integration testing?
11. What is the compatibility testing difference between testing IE explorer and testing in firefox?
What is bug leakage?
What is requirement traceability?

19. Describe the basic elements you put in a defect report.
17. In a situation where actual result doesn’t match with expected result, what would you do?
19. What is walkthrough and inspection?
20. What is the difference between test scenario and test case?
21. What is the difference between smoke testing and sanity testing?
22. What are all the scenarios to be considered while testing reports?
23. How do you know all the testing scenarios are covered?
24. If test cases are executed with existing requirements and the requirements are frequently
changing, what steps should be taken for the test completion?
25. What is a test strategy?
26. What is a checklist?
28. What type of testing does non- functional testing include?
29. What is the difference between boundary value analysis and equivalence portioning?
30. What are severity levels?
31. What is the diff between quality control and quality assurance?
What is Software Quality Assurance?
What is ‘Software Testing’?
Common interview questions QA:
1. What types of documents would you need for QA, QC, and Testing?
BRD, FRD
2. What did you include in a test plan?
The detailed doc which gives scope and approach to the application
3. Describe any bug you remember.
4. What is the purpose of the testing?
To have the applications bugs free

20. 5. What do you like (not like) in this job?
6. What is QA (quality assurance)?
Testing of the applications for bugs or any defects and assuring the product is bug free
7. What is the difference between QA and testing? Read the answer for this interview
question for software testers
QA is assuring the application is bug free
Testing is executing the applications, documenting all the results & defects.
8. How do you scope, organize, and execute a test project?
Through Test Plan
9. What is the role of QA in a development project?
Write the test cases, execute the test cases, report the defects. Perform regression testing if there
are any defects or new addition to the application
10. What is the role of QA in a company that produces software?
To check if the application is bug free from end to end.
11. Define quality for me as you understand it
Quality by itself says it all. For me quality means the application should not have any errors on
the user end.
12. Describe to me the difference between validation and verification.
Validation is boundary testing (tel No., zip code)
Verification is verifying the insertion of data
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.
Initiate, Define, Design, Build, Test, Deploy & Support
16. What are the properties of a good requirement?
The req should be specified clearly with all the details of the application
17. How do you differentiate the roles of Quality Assurance Manager and Project Manager?
QA Manager is the one who will manage all the QA Testers. Project Manager will be managing
all the developers and the whole project.
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?

21. 20. In general, how do you see automation fitting into the overall process of testing?
If the application is too big it should be tested by automation. Also if the application is going to
be in regression testing it should be automated
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.
Understanding the project thoroughly by reading the BRD, Creating test plans & documents for
that project & attending the meetings to improve my knowledge of this new project
23. What kinds of testing have you done?
The different kinds of testing which I was involved was manual testing, QTP automation testing,
winrunner & loadrunner
24. Have you ever created a test plan?
Yes the test plans for all the projects I have worked were created by me.
25. Have you ever written test cases or did you just execute those written by others?
Most of the times I have written the test cases and executed them, but there were times when I
had to execute the existing test case due to addition of new modules
26. What did your base your test cases?
27. How do you determine what to test?
To ensure the application is clean we have to check all the existing defects & rerun the test. Also
check if the whole application is running without any errors
28. How do you decide when you have 'tested enough?'
When the application is running smoothly from end to end without any errors.
29. How do you test if you have minimal or no documentation about the product?
To run the test we have to have the proper documents but if there are no documents about the
product we should have meetings with the developers and the users, discuss the product.
30. Describe me to the basic elements you put in a defect report?
Priority, assigned to,
Character Traits
1.Do you consider yourself to be a smart person?
A. Yes.
B. Depending on the way I handled with different situations

22. C. Interacting with other people.
D. Solving Business problems
E. Making decisions
2.How important is job security to you?
A. Security is the basic need. The only true job security comes from making a meaningful
contribution to my employer. I am confident that I will be able to continue getting the
work done always exceeding expectations.
3.Do you get bored doing the same work over and over again?
A. Not really, if the work involves my job. I don’t get bored because it is my
responsibility to complete it.
4.Do you prefer working as a member of a team or alone?
A. Working as a part of a team is one of the most important elements in a successful
career. It really depends on the best way to complete it. I would work equally hard with
the initiative required for success.
5.What are the reasons for your success?
A. When I do a job well, it gives me personal satisfaction.
B. Paying attention to details
C. I usually Recheck the things for missed ones
D. Hard work
E. Respect for others
6.Are you absent from work often?
A. No. My attendance record is very good (unless I have a serious health problem)
7. Hoe do you show your interest in your co-workers?
A. By keeping my eyes and ears open. I try to remember the things that are important to
the people around me. If I am a supervisor, I usually call a quick closed-door conference
to see if there is something that can be done before a problem occurs.
8.If you could be anyone, who would you like to be?
A. Generally I am pretty happy with who I am.
B. If it could be anyone I wanted, it would be a person who used his/her business skills
to make the world a better place.
C. The best way to succeed is by helping others to succeed.
9.How did you react to criticism superiors?
A. I always learned to receive criticism as a feedback to my actions.
10.What would you do if it were your last day on earth?
A. I would gather the people who are important to me and let them know how much they
have contributed to my happiness.

23. 11.Do you have a competitive nature?
A. Yes. It is necessary to be successful in a corporate environment. If I do my work well
the rewards will come and that is the way to succeed.
12.What is your idea of success?
13.How would you feel about working with a female executive?
14.What types of people try your patience?
15.How well do you cope with your tension?
16.Do you speak up if your point of view differs from that of your superiors?
17.Are you an innovative person?
A. .
18.How often do you lose your temper?
19.How have you benefited from your disappointments?
20.Do you get along with your co-workers?
21.What can you tell me about yourself?
22.What do you think you do best?
23.What have you learned from mistakes?
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?

24. 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?

25. 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?
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 programmer’s 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?
125. What books about QA (software testing) did you read?
126. What type of testing based specifically on a program code?
127. What type of testing based on any document that describes the "structure of the software"?
128. Please describe test design techniques like: state-transition diagrams, decision tables, activity
diagrams.
129. Describe business process testing and what test design technique would you use for it?
Test Automation job 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?

26. 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?
Testing Interview Questions
Why did you ever become involved in QA/testing?
What is the testing lifecycle and explain each of its phases?
What is the difference between testing and Quality Assurance?
What is Negative testing?
What was a problem you had in your previous assignment (testing if possible)? How
did you resolve it?
What are two of your strengths that you will bring to our QA/testing team?
How would you define Quality Assurance?
What do you like most about Quality Assurance/Testing?
What do you like least about Quality Assurance/Testing?
What is the Waterfall Development Method and do you agree with all the steps?
What is the V-Model Development Method and do you agree with this model?
What is the Capability Maturity Model (CMM)? At what CMM level were the last
few companies you worked?
What is a "Good Tester"?
Could you tell me two things you did in your previous assignment (QA/Testing

27. related hopefully) that you are proud of?
List 5 words that best describe your strengths.
What are two of your weaknesses?
What methodologies have you used to develop test cases?
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?
Define each of the following and explain how each relates to the other: Unit, System,
and Integration testing.
Define Verification and Validation. Explain the differences between the two.
Explain the differences between White-box, Gray-box, and Black-box testing.
How do you go about going into a new organization? How do you assimilate?
Define the following and explain their usefulness: Change Management,
Configuration Management, Version Control, and Defect Tracking.
What is ISO 9000? Have you ever been in an ISO shop?
When are you done testing?
What is the difference between a test strategy and a test plan?
What is ISO 9003? Why is it important
What are ISO standards? Why are they important?
What is IEEE 829? (This standard is important for Software Test Documentation-
Why?)
What is IEEE? Why is it important?
Do you support automated testing? Why?
We have a testing assignment that is time-driven. Do you think automated tests are
the best solution?
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?
Are reusable test cases a big plus of automated testing and explain why.
Can you build a good audit trail using CPWR's QACenter products. Explain why.
How important is Change Management in today's computing environments?
Do you think tools are required for managing change. Explain and please list some
tools/practices which can help you managing change.
We believe in ad-hoc software processes for projects. Do you agree with this? Please
explain your answer.
When is a good time for system testing?
Are regression tests required or do you feel there is a better use for resources?
Our software designers use UML for modeling applications. Based on their use cases,

28. we would like to plan a test strategy. Do you agree with this approach or would
this mean more effort for the testers.
Tell me about a difficult time you had at work and how you worked through it.
Give me an example of something you tried at work but did not work out so you had
to go at things another way.
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
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.
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
What is the structure of the company?
Who is going to do the interview-possible background information of interviewer?
What is the employer's environment (platforms, tools, etc.)?
What are the employer's methods and processes used in software arena?
What is the employer's philosophy?
What is the project all about you are interviewing for-as much information as
possible.
Any terminologies that the company may use.
Test Automation:
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?

29. 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?
Load Testing:
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?
General questions:
1. What types of documents would you need for QA, QC, and Testing?

30. 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 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

31. 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.

32. 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?
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?
1. What is software quality assurance?
2. What is the value of a testing group? How do you justify your work and budget?

33. 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?

34. 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)
Why did you ever become involved in QA/testing?
What is the testing lifecycle and explain each of its phases?
What is the difference between testing and Quality Assurance?
What is Negative testing?
What was a problem you had in your previous assignment (testing if possible)?
How did you resolve it?
What are two of your strengths that you will bring to our QA/testing team?
How would you define Quality Assurance?
What do you like most about Quality Assurance/Testing?
What do you like least about Quality Assurance/Testing?
What is the Waterfall Development Method and do you agree with all the steps?
What is the V-Model Development Method and do you agree with this model?
What is the Capability Maturity Model (CMM)? At what CMM level were the
last few companies you worked?
What is a "Good Tester"?
Could you tell me two things you did in your previous assignment (QA/Testing
related hopefully) that you are proud of?
List 5 words that best describe your strengths.
What are two of your weaknesses?
What methodologies have you used to develop test cases?
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?
Define each of the following and explain how each relates to the other: Unit,
System, and Integration testing.
Define Verification and Validation. Explain the differences between the two.
Explain the differences between White-box, Gray-box, and Black-box testing.
How do you go about going into a new organization? How do you assimilate?
Define the following and explain their usefulness: Change Management,
Configuration Management, Version Control, and Defect Tracking.
What is ISO 9000? Have you ever been in an ISO shop?
When are you done testing?
What is the difference between a test strategy and a test plan?

35. What is ISO 9003? Why is it important
What are ISO standards? Why are they important?
What is IEEE 829? (This standard is important for Software Test
Documentation-Why?)
What is IEEE? Why is it important?
Do you support automated testing? Why?
We have a testing assignment that is time-driven. Do you think automated tests
are the best solution?
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?
Are reusable test cases a big plus of automated testing and explain why.
Can you build a good audit trail using Compuware's QACenter products.
Explain why.
How important is Change Management in today's computing environments?
Do you think tools are required for managing change. Explain and please list
some tools/practices which can help you managing change.
We believe in ad-hoc software processes for projects. Do you agree with this?
Please explain your answer.
When is a good time for system testing?
Are regression tests required or do you feel there is a better use for resources?
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.
Tell me about a difficult time you had at work and how you worked through it.
Give me an example of something you tried at work but did not work out so you
had to go at things another way.
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
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.
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.

36. Preinterview Questions
What is the structure of the company?
Who is going to do the interview-possible background information of
interviewer?
What is the employer's environment (platforms, tools, etc.)?
What are the employer's methods and processes used in software arena?
What is the employer's philosophy?
What is the project all about you are interviewing for-as much information as
possible.
Any terminologies that the company may use.