Practice Flashcards
7 cards from real B.S.W.E. Bachelor of Software Engineering practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Practice flashcards as text
Which SOLID principle states that software entities should be open for extension but closed for modification?
Answer: Open/Closed Principle
The Open/Closed Principle promotes extending behavior through new code (subclasses, plugins) rather than modifying existing stable code.
A team uses feature flags to deploy incomplete features to production hidden from users. Which benefit does this provide?
Answer: Enables continuous deployment while controlling feature rollout
Feature flags decouple deployment from release, allowing teams to ship code continuously while controlling when and to whom features are exposed.
What is the main advantage of writing small, focused unit tests over large integration tests?
Answer: Unit tests are faster to run and pinpoint failures precisely
Small unit tests run in milliseconds and fail with a precise indication of which unit broke, making debugging faster compared to slower integration tests.
In software estimation, what does 'planning poker' use to reach a team consensus on story point estimates?
Answer: Individual secret voting with simultaneous reveal to avoid anchoring
Planning poker uses simultaneous card reveal to surface diverging estimates without anchoring bias, then the team discusses until consensus is reached.
Which practice requires every merge to the main branch to trigger an automated build, test, and report cycle?
Answer: Continuous Integration pipeline
A Continuous Integration pipeline automatically builds and tests every commit pushed to the main branch, catching integration issues immediately.
A developer commits code containing a hardcoded API key in a public repository. What is the first remediation step?
Answer: Revoke and rotate the exposed key immediately
Once a secret is committed to a public repository it must be treated as compromised; rotating the key immediately limits potential damage.
Which documentation artifact describes the 'who, what, and why' of a feature from the end user's perspective?
Answer: User story
A user story follows the format 'As a [user], I want [goal], so that [benefit],' capturing requirements from the end user's perspective.