ISTQB Advanced Technical Test Analyst Certificate in Software Testing

Sample Paper A - 1 Hour Examination This is not a complete exam paper

Record your surname/last/family name and initials on the Answer Sheet, writing in block capitals at the top and marking the relevant letter in each column. Attempt all 65 multiple-choice questions. There are no trick questions. Pass Mark is 65/100. Your answers should be indicated inside the box representing your chosen answer to the right of the question number. Do NOT turn over this page until instructed by the invigilator.

Copying of this paper is expressly forbidden without the direct approval of UKTB.

Candidate Name:

..

ATTA Sample Exam Paper A Page 1 of 20 Version 1.3 October 2011 UK Testing Board, 114-116 Curtain Road, London. EC2A 3AH UK Testing Board is the trading name of UKTB Ltd, Company Registration No. 6505485

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1 A B C D

A defect taxonomy is BEST described as which one of the following: Items to include on a defect report, including whether these are mandatory or not. The step-by-step means of reproducing a failure, including test data. A list of root causes, defects and failures which can be used to design test cases. A set of rules or criteria against which a product can be verified. K2 (1mark)

An insurance application has complex logic in its renewal premium calculations, represented as follows: IF A = B or (A > B and E = 0) THEN Extra_Premium = 75 ELSE IF B > 6 and C > 1970 THEN Extra_Premium = 250 ELSE IF A = 19 or (D = 12 or D = 14) THEN Extra_Premium = 45 ELSE Extra_Premium = 0 END IF Using multiple condition testing for the above pseudo-code, what is the MINIMUM number of tests required to give full coverage?

A B C D

6. 11. 16. 20. K3 (3 marks)

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An insurance application has complex logic in its renewal premium calculations, represented as follows:

IF A = B or (A > B and E = 0) THEN Extra_Premium = 75 ELSE IF B > 6 and C > 1970 THEN Extra_Premium = 250 ELSE IF A = 19 or (D = 12 or D = 14) THEN Extra_Premium = 45 ELSE Extra_Premium = 0 END IF Using condition determination testing for the above pseudo-code, what is the minimum number of tests required to give full coverage? A B C D 48. 17. 11. 7. K3 (3 marks)

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SCENARIO 1 The following scenario applies for Questions 4 to 8 inclusive. Replacement of legacy human resources system The Financial College of Technology (FCOT) has students drawn largely from across the UK, although it also welcomes overseas students. It provides vocational and technical education and training across a broad spectrum of needs from basic skills programmes and GCSEs to degree and MBA courses. FCOT has decided to replace its legacy Human Resource Information System (HRIS), Service HR. The HR team met with four companies to decide what system best suited the business needs of FCOT and due to their superior reporting capability, MIDLINK HR was chosen as the preferred supplier. Limited reporting capability prevented managers from gaining important information to ascertain business effectiveness. MIDLINK HR modules to be implemented include; absence, contact details of employees and probation review. Within 18 months FCOT expect to integrate MIDLINK HRs recruitment, staff development and self service modules to allow employees to track their own data, book holiday, input their absence and update personal details. Below is the Functional Specification for the Absence module. Field Name Employee/Student Name Employee/Student Age Employee/Student Gender Employee/Student Sick Allowance Employee/Student Start Date Valid entries Text without special characters Students must be at least 16 years of age and no greater than 100 years of age String value (Male/Female) The sick allowance must between 0 and up to 30 days per calendar year. The day component must be between 1 and 31 inclusive. The month component must be greater than 0 and no greater than 12. The year component must be from 2000 2100 inclusive. Field Format Text box Drop Down List Drop Down List Text Box Drop Down List Drop Down List Drop Down List

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APPENDIX A: Flow Chart for the Absence module.

Read Day value

Read Month value

Read Year value

False

If Day > 0 AND Month > 0 AND Year > 1999

true

Read Sick Allowance

Case 1 False If Sick Days > 0 AND Sick Days <= 20 true

Case 2

Case 3

End Module

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Referring to Scenario 1 The Test Manager is now required to provide the customer with increased confidence of a more thorough test coverage approach and is only concerned with coverage of the functional test. A majority of his team at FCOT are new to the organisation and updates have been made to the Absence module such that if a students sick allowance rolls over from the previous year, and is more than 20 days, the additional days can be taken as leave. The following test techniques have been provided for consideration to support this new approach. Supporting documentation is available in the form of a functional specification, and internal structures of the code have also been supplied.

A B C D E F G

Equivalence partitioning. Fault attacks. Decision table. Use-Case testing. Multiple condition testing. Boundary value analysis. Exploratory testing. Choose the three MOST appropriate techniques to use in developing an improved set of test cases. K4 (3 marks)

Referring to Scenario 1 MIDLINK HRIS has delivered the Absence module to the FCOT infrastructure department in readiness for FCOTs system testing. As system test analyst you are responsible for designing the test cases to cover the module and have been asked to identify necessary pre-conditions before test execution can commence. Given the information provided, which of the following options are valid preconditions for test execution against the Absence module? a. b. c. d. There are no severity A or B defects in the baseline version of the Absence module. MIDLINK HRIS have carried out Unit testing of the Absence module. Test cases covering the Absence module have been created and approved, having gone through internal review at FCOT. The Absence module has been installed into the system test environment at FCOT.

A B C D

b and d. a and c. c and d. a, b and d. K2 (1 mark)

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Referring to Scenario 1 The test strategy issued by FCOT defines a risk based approach to system testing, and has been sent out for internal review. Before the strategy is agreed and shared with MIDLINK, you have been asked to review the strategy and feed your comments back to the FCOT Test Manager. Which of the following activities are valid and SHOULD remain in the test strategy? a. b. c. d. Testing metrics will be gathered to facilitate the reporting of residual project risks. Each risk will be ranked using risk exposure, defined as the likelihood of the problem. occurring, multiplied by the impact if the problem occurs. For each risk, a mitigation action and impact will be documented. Test execution will be carried out based on the associated risk of each test, and those risks with a higher risk exposure will be executed first.

A B C D

a and d. a, b and c. b and d. b, c and d. K2 (1 mark)

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Referring to Scenario 1 The Functional Specification for the Absence module has been modified to allow the 'Age' to be entered into a text field rather than chosen from a list. The client has stipulated that this is a critical function and must be thoroughly tested. Test Case 1 Description: To show that only valid entries for the 'Sick Allowance are accepted by the Absence module. Test Case 2 - Description: To show that only valid entries for the Age field are accepted by the Absence module. Select two of the following options that would each achieve exactly 75% model coverage when applying boundary value analysis appropriate for the above test cases.

A B C D E F

Sick [0,1,2,30,31,33]; Age [16,17,18,97,100,101]. Sick [-1,0,3,30,31,35]; Age [15,16,17,98,102,103]. Sick [0,1,2,29,30,31]; Age [15,16,17,99,102,103]. Sick [-1,0,1,28,31,32]; Age [17,18,20,101,102,103]. Sick [0,1,2,30,31,32]; Age [15,17,18,98,100,102]. Sick [-1,0,1,30,31,32]; Age [17,19,20,99,100,101]. K3 (3 marks)

Referring to Scenario 1 and specifically Appendix A - Using condition determination testing as a coverage technique, what is the MINIMUM number of test cases required to achieve 50% coverage for the MIDLINK HRIS SLR Absence module?

A B C D

3. 1. 5. 2. K3 (2 marks)

- End of Scenario 1 -

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Test completion criteria are specified as follows: All agreed test cases specified All specified test cases executed No more than: 0 critical defects outstanding 2 major defects outstanding 10 minor defects outstanding

The following details are available at the end of week 7 of testing: Tests required 100 Tests specified 99 Tests executed 99 Defects: Critical 14 - closed 14 Major 27 - closed 26 Minor 54 - closed 42 In the last 2 weeks, the following changes were found: 3 more test cases were required 4 more test cases were specified 3 more test cases were executed 3 critical defects were raised and 3 were closed 5 major defects were raised and 6 were closed 12 minor defects were raised and 17 were closed Which of the following can be said about the completion criteria? Select one option. A B C D Test completion criteria are all met. The only criteria to fail is the number of major defects outstanding. The only criteria to fail is the number of minor defects outstanding. The only criteria to fail is the number of test cases executed. K3 (2 marks)

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SCENARIO 2 The following scenario applies for Questions 10 to 14 inclusive. Merger of document management systems EQUIP UK are a recognized provider of document management systems, have recently merged with two other companies, and all three use different operating systems and hardware. As a result of the merger, all three companies will need to develop into the same framework and set of Application Programming Interfaces (API). EQUIP UK will remain the majority shareholder and for this reason they have chosen to provide the quality assurance team, test resource and supporting test documentation in the form of a test strategy and test plans. Development will be done by the other companies, for each set of interfaces into the Electronic Content Management System (ECMS). The previous release from the development teams was 6 weeks late and due to a lack of regression testing around each API, a number of defects were identified during system integration testing by EQUIP UK. The two development companies have agreed to invest in a suite of test automation tools, with the emphasis on code coverage and production of Interface Control documents, detailing the specification and requirements for each API defined by the ECMS. The first formal release of 3 API's went live 4 months ago, and during user acceptance testing, a number of defects were raised surrounding performance testing. For this reason, EQUIP UK have decided to invest in a performance test tool. Once UAT has been carried out and the ECMS has gone live, support is handed over to a third party, responsible for ensuring the infrastructure in each purchasing organisation meets the platform specifications, and the software installed on the platforms conforms to the requirements of the ECMS. The ECMS is accessed through a web interface so the user experience is browser based. The system has been designed against the following requirements: 1. The system must be accessible on IEv6 & IEv8 and also Google Chrome. 2. When selecting any of the menu options, the user should be redirected to the page within the same browser window and within 10 seconds of submitting the request. 3. At any point, the user should have the option of saving the changes they have made and returning to the main page. 4. The maximum number of concurrent users expected will be 100,000, and response times will remain at a maximum of 10 seconds per transaction. 5. Transmission protocols between the ECMS front-end and the underlying modules will be HTTP, SOAP, XML and JSON.

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10

Referring to Scenario 2 One of the interface development companies has purchased a new static analysis tool which has produced the following statistics from the interface code: 28 instances of distinct variables defined without being used. 5 instances of distinct variables used without being set. The cyclomatic complexity of the code is 12. 4 instances of distinct variables set, then set again without being first used. 7 instances of number of variables used and then used again without being set.

A B C D E

Which two of these statistics are MOST useful in finding possible defects? K4 (2 marks)

11

Referring to Scenario 2 You have been brought in as an independent consultant and asked to update the current test strategy of EQUIP UK. Since the company decided to hand over the live support of the system to a third party organisation, they have requested the amendment and re-issue of documentation covering the support model that is to be used. Which one of the following is NOT a valid addition to the test strategy covering maintainability, portability or accessibility?

B C

During system testing both EQUIP UK and each of the development platforms will be tested to identify any issues with compatibility and the install of the packaged code release. COTS tools will be integrated with the ECMS to cover character mapping and speech recognition, and are to be in- scope for system testing of the ECMS. Tests that focus around identification of memory leaks and general degradation of performance over time under normal operating conditions will be covered by manual tests. The ease at which software can be changed, re-used and tested once it has been released by EQUIP UK into the operational environment, will be tested by a third party organisation. K2 (1 mark)

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12

Referring to Scenario 2 Testing commences, and faults are found throughout the testing lifecycle. EQUIP UK decided to follow an iterative approach to testing, and is responsible for all testing beyond unit/integration testing. Faults found by EQUIP UK are detailed as follows. a. b. c. d. e. During failover tests, the ECMS content server failed to start on the backup environment. The 'User profile' page is selected from a drop down menu and is not visible from the main page. Following increasing load, the ECMS performance degraded below the minimum response time as outlined in the requirements. End users are able to access 'RESTRICTED' data in the corporate folder structure of the ECMS, which is not by design. Rich text templates do not contain pre-populated header and footer detail.

Which option below represents three possible faults found by security, reliability and efficiency testing? A B C D b, d, e. a, c, d. b, c, d. a, b, e. K2 (1 mark)

13

Referring to Scenario 2 Which one of the following BEST describes a test tool that would be MOST applicable and beneficial to EQUIP UK, taking into consideration problems encountered during previous releases? Capture of data describing the execution of concurrent test suites on different test environments, across EQUIP UK and each of the other development environments. Recording of test instructions and execution steps to enable capture replay against the GUI front end of the ECMS. Monitor and report on the performance of the infrastructure and code used by EQUIP UK during system and system integration testing, prior to UAT. Measuring code coverage during execution for each of the API's once delivered to EQUIP UK. K2 (1 mark)

A B C D

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14

Referring to Scenario 2 Using the information provided and from the options given below, select two valid performance tests that would enable EQUIP UK to test the user experience of the ECMS when accessing the GUI. Test tools considered must be able to capture and replay messages and interactions in the format/protocol as outlined in the specified requirements. a. Test that when the maximum expected number of users access the ECMS via the web browser, performance is not degraded and response times are within those outlined in the functional specification. b. Validate the ability of the Information Handling module to be accessed via ECMS web services, using SOAP as the transmission protocol between the GUI and the web services module. c. Monitor performance of the underlying infrastructure of the ECMS to capture metrics around CPU, memory and network switches. d. Generate 1000 user requests per second and ensure that the GUI is able to render the responses within the required time. e. Without using the GUI of the ECMS, inject messages that simulate the maximum number of concurrent users accessing the system under test.

A B C D

a and b. a and c. b and d. b and e. K3 (2 marks)

- End of Scenario 2 -

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15 A B C D

Which of the following involves the activity of examining an application whilst it is running? Dynamic analysis. Code review. Static analysis. Call graphing. K2 (1 mark)

16

In communicating with the wider project team, which of the following are the MOST important factors? a. b. c. d. e. f. It is effective for the target audience. Communication is solely from a testing perspective. There is a minimum of criticism. An emphasis is placed on the role of testing. Communication uses tact and diplomacy. There is a use of diagrams to give a bigger picture.

A B C D

a, b, c. a, e. b and f. c, d e. K2 (1 mark)

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SCENARIO 3 The following scenario applies for Questions 17 and 18. Sensor control mechanism A garden centre has sensor-controlled means of controlling the temperature within its greenhouses, designed to offset the temperature extremes that can occur rather than give a total flat-line temperature. Sensors are calibrated to detect changes of 0.5C. Actions required are detailed as follows: If the temperature falls to -5, the heaters are turned on. The heaters are automatically turned off when the temperature rises above -5. Between -5 and 15, there are no special actions but at 15 the windows are opened. If the temperature rises as high as 27, the alarm is turned on, but between the windows opening and the use of the alarm there are two further cooling mechanisms that are used. The sprinkler system is turned on at 3 before the alarm and the fans begin to operate 4 after the windows have opened. The fans are turned off automatically when either the temperature drops below the trigger point or when the sprinklers are turned on, as the effect of both on the plants would be harmful. Both sprinklers and alarm are automatically turned off if the temperature drops below their trigger points. Each time a change of status occurs, details of the actions are written to the audit log.

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17

Referring to Scenario 3 You are to use boundary value analysis to test the following actions: a. b. c. d. Alarm stops. Heaters turn off. Fans turn off. Sprinklers turned on.

Which one of the following test cases (A to D) show correct application of boundary value analysis for all four actions? A B C D -5, -4, 14, 15, 18, 19, 23, 24, 26, 27. -5, -4.5, -4, 23.5, 24, 24.5, 26, 26.5, 27. -5.5, -4.5, 18.5, 19.5, 23, 24, 26.5, 27.5. -5, -4.5, 18.5, 19, 23.5, 24, 26.5, 27. K3 (2 marks)

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18

Referring to Scenario 3 The following events are also recorded in the audit log:

If in any 24 hour period the alarm has started and windows have been opened then the audit log would record a medium temperature warning flag as the temperature fluctuation would indicate possible problems with the temperature sensor. A medium flag would also be set if the sprinklers on and heater on action had occurred in 24 hours (same range difference). But if the alarm starts and heaters on both occurred in 24 hours then a high warning flag would be set as this would indicate an extremely unlikely temperature fluctuation. Concerning the functionality of the heat-control software, which two test design techniques would be the BEST choice for ensuring that the audit log is correctly written to? A B C D E Equivalence partitioning. State transition testing. Decision table testing. Classification tree method. Boundary value analysis. K4 (2 marks)

-End of Scenario 3-

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19

The following represent checklist items for a code review. Which three SHOULD the review team pay the closest attention to during the review meeting? The names for variables not to standards. Inaccessible code. Parameter mismatches. Variables used before they are defined. Lack of comments in the code. Code indentation not to standards. Code not stored in the configuration management tool. Code loops with no exit. Variables defined and not used (either at all or before redefinition). Over complex conditions. K4 (3 marks)

A B C D E F G H I J

20

The application under test is currently used in production, and enables the business to display and amend client account information (i.e. NOT available directly to the general public). The system is undergoing UAT, where the recent delivery is to give new reporting capabilities, adjust the industry premium rate for the start of the next financial year (in 3 weeks time) and correct the well-documented Double Monday problem. The severity of problems reported in the defect management system is critical, high, medium, low and cosmetic. Four business users have been involved in the test activity, the results of which can be summarised as follows: Reporting - new reports are produced in the correct circumstances, and can be produced to a file or to the printer as determined by the operator but for any of the 4 report types, there are no page breaks making the reports difficult to read; Industry Premium Rate is applied at run-date rather than the transaction effective date; Behaviour around the Double Monday problem is unchanged.

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Which one of the following (A to D) BEST represents the information to be passed back to the development team on any new or existing defect reports? A Reporting: update the existing defect report to severity critical, detailing the tests undertaken, and giving examples of the reports produced. Industry Premium Rate: raise a new defect giving examples of when the rate is correct and when it is incorrect. Severity high. Double Monday: close the existing defect and raise a new one, to reflect that the problem still occurs on release 1.0.3.12. B Reporting: update the existing defect report to severity low, detailing the tests undertaken, and giving examples of the reports produced Industry Premium Rate: raise a new defect detailing that the rate seems to be applied at run date rather than at the transaction effective date. Severity critical. Double Monday: update the existing defect report to indicate that the software has been retested on the new (1.0.3.12) release and shows the same problem. Update the severity to critical as the defect has not been fixed when reported as such. C Reporting: update the existing defect report to severity cosmetic, detailing the tests undertaken, and giving examples of the reports produced. Industry Premium Rate: raise a new defect with severity high Double Monday: update the existing problem to status retest failed. D Reporting: update the existing defect report to severity medium, detailing the tests undertaken, and giving examples of the reports produced. Industry Premium Rate: raise a new defect with severity critical Double Monday: update the existing defect report to indicate that the software has been retested on the new (1.0.3.12) release and shows the same problem. Manually enquire as to whether the item was included in the build. K4 (2 marks)

-End of Exam-

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