Software Testing-Question Bank: Q. 21 to 30

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Software Testing-Question Bank: Q. 21 to 30

Q. 21: What is the difference between Alpha Testing and Beta Testing?

Typically a software product passes through two stages of testing before it is considered to be Final. The first stage is known as “Alpha Testing”. It is often performed by potential users / customers or an independent test team at the developers’ site. It is usually done when the development of the software product is nearing completion; minor design changes may still be made as a result of Alpha testing.

The second stage coming after alpha testing is known as “Beta Testing”. Versions of the software, known as beta versions, are released to a limited audience outside of the programming team so that further evaluation by the users can reveal more faults or bugs in the product. Sometimes, beta versions are made available to the open public to increase the feedback field to a maximum number of future users.

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Q. 22: What is the difference between Static Testing and Dynamic Testing?

“Static Testing” involves testing activities performed without actually running the software. It includes Document review, code inspections, walkthroughs and desk checks etc.

Whereas “Dynamic Testing” Is used to describe the testing of the dynamic behavior of the software code. It involves actual compilation & running of the software by giving input values and checking if the output is as expected. It is the validation portion of Verification and Validation.

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Q. 23: What is the difference between Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing?

The general term of “Smoke Testing” has come from leakage testing of sewers & drain lines involving blowing smoke into various parts of the sewer and drain lines to detect sources of unwanted leaks and sources of sewer odors. In relation to software testing field, Smoke testing Is a non-exhaustive software testing, ascertaining that the most crucial functions of the program work well, without getting bothered about finer details of it.

Whereas “Sanity Testing” Is an initial testing effort to find out if the new software version is performing well enough to accept it for a major testing effort. For example, if the new software is crashing the systems every 5 minutes, bogging down the systems to a crawl, or destroying the databases, then it can be concluded that the software may not be in a ‘sane’ enough condition to warrant further testing in its current state.

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Q. 24: What is the difference between Stress Testing and Load Testing?

“Stress Testing” is subjecting a system to an unreasonable load while denying it the adequate resources as required to process that load. The resources can be RAM, disc space, mips & interrupts etc. etc. The idea is to stress a system to the breaking point in order to find bugs, which will make the break potentially harmful. The system is not expected to process the overload without adequate resources, but to fail in a decent manner (e.g., failure without corrupting or losing data). In stress testing the load (incoming transaction stream) is often deliberately distorted so as to force the system into resource depletion.

Whereas “Load Testing” is a test performed with an objective to determine the maximum sustainable load which the system can handle. Load is varied from a minimum (zero) to the maximum level the system can sustain without running out of resources or causing excessive delay in transactions.

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Q. 25: What is the difference between Black Box Testing & White Box Testing?

First of all Black-Box and White-Box both are Test Design Methods.

“Black-Box” test design treats the system as a “Black-Box” (Wherein the tester can’t see as to what is there inside the box). Hence we design the test cases in such a way that we pour the input from one end of the box and expect a certain specific output from the other end of the box. To run these test cases, the tester need not know as to how the input gets transformed to output inside the box. Black-Box is also known as Behavioral-Box or Functional-Box or Opaque-Box or Gray-Box or Closed-Box.

Whereas “White-Box” test design treats the system as a Transparent Box, which allows anyone to see inside the “Box”. In White-Box the tester is able to see the process of transformation of an “Input” into an “Output” inside the box. Hence we design the test cases with a view to test the internal Logic, Paths or Branches of the box. White-Box is also known as Structural-Box or Glass-Box or Clear-Box or Translucent-Box test design

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Q. 26: What is Quality?

Quality software is software that is reasonably bug-free, delivered on time and within budget, meets requirements and expectations and is maintainable. However, quality is a subjective term. Quality depends on who the customer is and their overall influence in the scheme of things.

Customers of a software development project include end-users, customer acceptance test engineers, testers, customer contract officers, customer management, the development organization’s management, test engineers, testers, salespeople, software engineers, stockholders and accountants. Each type of customer will have his or her 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.

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Q. 27: What is an Inspection?

An inspection is a formal meeting, more formalized than a walkthrough and typically consists of 3-10 people including a moderator, reader (the author of whatever is being reviewed) and a recorder (to make notes in the document). The subject of the inspection is typically a document, such as a requirements document or a test plan. The purpose of an inspection is to find problems and see what is missing, not to fix anything. The result of the meeting is documented in a written report. Attendees should prepare for this type of meeting by reading through the document, before the meeting starts; most problems are found during this preparation. Preparation for inspections is difficult, but is one of the most cost-effective methods of ensuring quality, since bug prevention is more cost effective than bug detection.

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Q. 28: What is Good Design?

Design could mean to many things, but often refers to functional design or internal design. Good functional design is indicated by software functionality can be traced back to customer and end-user requirements. Good internal design is indicated by software code whose overall structure is clear, understandable, easily modifiable and maintainable; is robust with sufficient error handling and status logging capability; and works correctly when implemented.

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Q. 29: What is Six Sigma?

“Six Sigma” means Six Standard Deviations from the mean. It is a methodology aimed to reduce defect levels below 3.4 Defects Per one Million Opportunities. Six Sigma approach improves the process performance, decreases variation and maintains consistent quality of the process output. This leads to defect reduction and improvement in profits, product quality and customer satisfaction.

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Q. 30: What is difference between CMM and CMMI?

“CMM” means “Capability Maturity Model” developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). It is a process capability maturity model, which aids in the definition and understanding of an organization’s processes. CMM is intended as a tool for objectively assessing the ability of government contractors’ processes to perform a contracted software project.

Whereas “CMMI” means “Capability Maturity Model Integration” & it has superceded CMM. The old CMM has been renamed to Software Engineering CMM (SE-CMM).

Continue to Next Part : Q 31 to 40

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