Free ISTQB Advanced Level Questions and Answers — Questions and Answers
Question 1: As a test manager, which of the following actions may you take to mitigate project risk?
- Contracting out after a major test analyst leaves
- Checking for issues with performance
- Using test findings to conduct a project retrospective
- Acquiring additional testing facilities in case one fails while being tested (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Acquiring additional testing facilities in case one fails while being tested
Mitigating project risk involves taking proactive steps to reduce the likelihood or impact of potential negative events. Acquiring additional testing facilities acts as a contingency plan, ensuring that testing can continue without significant delays even if primary resources fail. This directly addresses a potential project risk related to resource availability and test environment stability, preventing disruptions to the testing schedule.
Question 2: You are organizing the testing of an integrated system that will handle an accounts-receivable system for a bank using three off-the-shelf components. With project and system stakeholders, you are holding an informal quality risk analysis session to decide which test conditions and to what extent each should be tested. In this quality risk analysis session, which of the following is a quality risk item that you might identify?
- timely payment of all debts incurred from foreign suppliers
- Prioritizing risks based on impact and likelihood
- Insufficient component testing carried out by a component vendor
- computation of exorbitant late payment fines for bills (Correct answer)
Correct answer: computation of exorbitant late payment fines for bills
A quality risk item is a potential problem that could negatively impact the quality of the software, often related to functionality, performance, or security. The 'computation of exorbitant late payment fines for bills' directly represents a potential functional defect or error in the system's logic. Such an error could lead to significant financial and reputational damage for the bank, making it a critical quality risk that requires thorough testing.
Question 3: You are determining risk priorities in a formalized quality risk analysis session that uses the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis technique. In this calculation, which of the following is an important factor?
- death of a vital member of the test team
- death of a vital member of the development team
- Priority and severity (Correct answer)
- Features: efficiency, functionality, portability, maintainability, usability, and reliability
Correct answer: Priority and severity
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is a systematic approach to identifying potential failure modes, their causes, and their effects. In FMEA, risks are typically prioritized based on their severity (impact), occurrence (likelihood), and detectability. Therefore, 'Priority and severity' are crucial factors used to rank and address identified risks, guiding where testing efforts should be focused to maximize risk reduction.
Question 4: Let's say you work as a test manager for a bank and are in charge of acceptance, system, and integration testing. You are employed on a project to modernize an automated teller machine so that users can use credit cards that are supported to get cash advances. All compatible credit cards should be able to receive cash advances from $20 to $500 through the system. American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Eurocard, and Japan Credit Bank credit cards are supported. Which of the following best sums up the helpful advice that a significant stakeholder can offer during a high-quality risk analysis?
- A help desk employee can offer advice regarding a risk item's impact. (Correct answer)
- The chance of a danger item can be input by a tester.
- A developer may have opinions about how a risk item may affect things.
- One source of information about a risk item's possibility is a business analysis.
Correct answer: A help desk employee can offer advice regarding a risk item's impact.
During quality risk analysis, various stakeholders provide valuable input based on their expertise. A help desk employee, being on the front lines of user interaction, has direct experience with common user problems and complaints. This makes them uniquely qualified to provide insights into the real-world impact and consequences of potential system failures or defects on users, thus informing the 'impact' aspect of a risk item.
Question 5: In which of the following scenarios would you anticipate the greatest amount of new or altered risk items and risk levels to come from an iterative quality risk analysis?
- The final requirements specification is subjected to a risk analysis before being formally placed under configuration management. (Correct answer)
- When the quality risk analysis is finished, the development manager appoints two more programmers.
- Once test design is finished, a tester leaves, and you replace her with a new tester.
- After receiving the final requirements specification, you conduct a risk analysis on it and then obtain a draft design specification.
Correct answer: The final requirements specification is subjected to a risk analysis before being formally placed under configuration management.
Iterative quality risk analysis involves reassessing risks throughout the project lifecycle. The greatest amount of new or altered risk items and levels would likely emerge when a significant, foundational document like the final requirements specification is first analyzed. This is because it's the initial comprehensive definition of what needs to be built, and any issues or ambiguities identified at this stage can have widespread implications for quality risks that need to be tracked and managed.
Question 6: Envision yourself as a test manager engaged in a project to develop a programmable thermostat intended for residential usage, which would regulate HVAC systems (central heating, ventilation, and air conditioning). Apart from its standard HVAC control features, the thermostat can also transfer data to a PC browser-based application for additional study. As a quality risk item with a high probability, compatibility issues between the browser-based application and the various PC setups that potentially host it are found during quality risk analysis. Compatibility testing is your planned solution to mitigate this risk. How would you go about tracking how testing affects this risk reduction while the test is being run?
- Examine how many flaws were discovered in relation to this risk item. (Correct answer)
- Decrease the amount of PC configurations that are supported
- Make time to test the most typical PC setup.
- Assign more testers to the compatibility domain than the functionality domain.
Correct answer: Examine how many flaws were discovered in relation to this risk item.
To track how testing affects risk reduction, it's essential to monitor the effectiveness of the tests in identifying issues related to that specific risk. By examining the number of flaws discovered that are directly linked to compatibility issues, the test manager can assess whether the compatibility testing is effectively uncovering and mitigating this high-probability risk. A high number of discovered flaws indicates that the risk was real and the testing is working to expose it.
Question 7: Which of the following projects would benefit most from failure mode and effect analysis as a risk analysis method?
- One of the main goals is to reduce the quantity of documentation.
- This is the first time risk-based testing has been used by the project team.
- The system being tested is crucial for safety and is also complicated. (Correct answer)
- A financial system is the one being tested.
Correct answer: The system being tested is crucial for safety and is also complicated.
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is particularly well-suited for complex systems where safety is critical. Its systematic nature allows for detailed identification of potential failure modes, their causes, and their effects, enabling a thorough understanding of risks that could lead to severe consequences. For safety-critical and complex systems, a rigorous and structured approach like FMEA is invaluable for ensuring reliability and preventing catastrophic failures.
Question 8: Proceed with the scenario that was previously explained. Which of the following subjects would the master test plan need to cover in-depth?
- An explanation of dependencies between cases
- An orderly set of test cases
- A regression testing approach (Correct answer)
- A list of boundary values for the advance amount
Correct answer: A regression testing approach
A master test plan outlines the overall testing strategy for a project. For a system modernization project like the ATM update, where new features are added to an existing system, a robust regression testing approach is crucial. This ensures that the new changes do not negatively impact existing functionality, which is a significant risk in such projects and therefore needs detailed planning in the master test plan.
Question 9: Assume once more the scenario from the previous questions, in which you are a test manager working on a project to create a programmable thermostat for home use to control central HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems. The possibility of excessive compressor cycling, or turning the unit on and off repeatedly at short intervals, causing damage to the HVAC system, has been identified as a critical quality risk for this system. Which of the following best describes how an IEEE 829 test plan may be used to guide relevant testing for this risk?
- In the test plan's introduction, list every need for the programmable thermostat.
- One of the test items should be a compressor that is operating properly.
- Add the feature that stops overcycling to the list of features that need testing. (Correct answer)
- For this level of testing, create a different test plan.
Correct answer: Add the feature that stops overcycling to the list of features that need testing.
The IEEE 829 standard for test plans includes sections for 'Features to be Tested' and 'Features Not to be Tested.' Since excessive compressor cycling is identified as a critical quality risk, the feature designed to prevent this (the overcycling prevention mechanism) should be explicitly listed under 'Features to be Tested.' This ensures that specific testing efforts are dedicated to verifying the functionality that mitigates this critical risk, aligning the test plan with the risk analysis.
Question 10: Proceed with the scenario outlined in the priceless query. <br> For every person-month of development team effort, the test team has historically discovered about 12 defects during system testing on seven previous projects. A new project that is expected to be completed in the next six months has five developers allocated to it. Assume that the convergence chart indicates a flattening of the cumulative number of bugs detected at 351 flaws. <br> Which of the following claims is most likely to be true based just on the facts provided?
- Approximately the amount of flaws you would anticipate discovering during a system test has been discovered. (Correct answer)
- For the best testing, you needed a test team with at least three testers.
- Tests for at least one significant quality risk category have been left out by you.
- Just twenty more flaws should be discovered before the system test is completed.
Correct answer: Approximately the amount of flaws you would anticipate discovering during a system test has been discovered.
The problem states that historically, 12 defects are found per person-month of development effort. With 5 developers for 6 months, the total development effort is 30 person-months (5 * 6). Therefore, the anticipated number of defects is 30 * 12 = 360. Since the convergence chart indicates 351 flaws have been discovered, which is very close to the anticipated 360 defects, it suggests that the testing has likely found most of the expected flaws.
Question 11: Which of the following best exemplifies a method for managing test progress with respect to the amount of quality risk that remains?
- calculating the total number of test instances that were successful and unsuccessful.
- counting the quantity of flaws that are discovered and the quantity that are fixed.
- calculating the proportion of risk items that have been tested and found to be free of known faults. (Correct answer)
- counting the quantity of needs with known flaws and the quantity of requirements that function as intended
Correct answer: calculating the proportion of risk items that have been tested and found to be free of known faults.
Managing test progress with respect to remaining quality risk means tracking how effectively testing is addressing identified risks. By calculating the proportion of risk items that have been thoroughly tested and confirmed to be free of known defects, the test manager gains a direct measure of how much risk has been mitigated. This metric provides a clear picture of the remaining exposure and guides further testing efforts.
Free ISTQB Advanced Level Questions and Answers
As a test manager, which of the following actions may you take to mitigate project risk?