ISQI ISTQB Certified Tester Advanced Level Test Analyst (CTAL-TA v4.0) Sample Questions:

1. You are working on a project to build a purchasing system. The main requirements for the system are that it shall:
* Allow users to enter details of items that they wish to have purchased and, from these details, create a purchase request.
* Take each purchase request through a workflow that will allow the requestor's line manager to approve the request, reject it or return it for clarification / modification.
* Forward approved requests to the Purchasing Department.
* Allow purchasers to find the best available supplier for each approved request and place the request on that supplier as a purchase order.
The solution is being developed according to the company's traditional V-model methodology. The requirements are clearly documented and include a business process model.
The main release has now been live for three months and you are working on the first maintenance release.
The test manager has asked you, the senior TA, to identify those parts of the test process which were most and least effective at finding defects in the main release.
You have collected statistics for the independent test activities, i.e. excluding developers' testing, including only the 178 defects in the three highest of your five defect severity levels. The results are presented in the table below:

Assume that all defects not found at the first opportunity could have been, e.g. that all defects that escaped into acceptance testing were within the scope and objectives of system testing. By applying Defect detection percentage (DDP) analysis, which test activity was LEAST effective?

A) System testing
B) Test design, including solution design review
C) Test analysis, including requirements review
D) Acceptance testing

2. You are working on a project to build a purchasing system. The main requirements for the system are that it shall:
* Allow users to enter details of items that they would like to purchase and, from these details, create a purchase request.
* Take each purchase request through a workflow that will allow the requestor's line manager to approve the request, reject it, or return it for clarification / modification.
* Forward approved requests to the Purchasing Department.
* Allow purchasers to find the best available supplier for each approved request and place the request on that supplier as a purchase order.
The system is being developed following an Agile SDLC. Risk-based testing is practiced informally, discussion about what testing each user story will need being done in a risk-driven way during story refinement, but there is no central product risk register. Testing is exploratory, except for the acceptance tests for each story's acceptance tests. Operational profiles have been created to guide performance testing.
Regression test automation started late. The team want to automate all acceptance tests for every user story, but the test automation engineers are still playing catch up. They started with the tests that were easiest to automate, so the functional and non-functional coverage of the regression test pack is incomplete and random.
The current iteration is delivering a major change to the approval workflow and you, as a Test Analyst, have been tasked with defining the regression testing.
Which techniques would be MOST effective for selecting regression tests?
a) History-based, driven by the results of the regression tests run so far b) Risk-based, driven by the product risks and their traceability to the tests c) Operational profile-based, driven by the likely patterns of use of the relevant transactions d) Coverage-based, driven by the coverage obtained from use of relevant test techniques e) Impact analysis, driven by consultation with technical stakeholders to identify what might be affected.

A) c) and e)
B) b) and e)
C) a) and b)
D) a) and d)

3. In which of the following circumstances is the transition from a high-level test case to a low-level test case MOST LIKELY to be deferred from test design to test implementation?

A) When the person who runs the test will not be its author
B) When product risk analysis has not been completed
C) When specific test data are needed for the test case
D) When the details required depend on the test execution schedule

4. You are a TA in the development of a road traffic control application, which will be installed at busy road junctions, to control the operation of traffic signal lights according to sensors that detect traffic volume. This safety-critical project is still in the early stages of test planning and the project schedule is tight.
The Test Manager has asked you if crowd testing should be included in the project's test strategy. You do NOT think it should. Which limitation of crowd testing MOST influences your view?

A) Coordinating with testers in various locations and time zones, with cultural differences and language barriers, can be challenging
B) Sharing software with external testers poses data security and confidentiality risks
C) Testing quality can vary significantly depending on the skills of individual testers
D) Ensuring comprehensive test documentation and managing a large number of findings can be challenging

5. You have been appointed to be a TA in the development of a road traffic control application, which will be installed at busy road junctions to control the operation of traffic signal lights according to sensors that detect traffic volume on the various approaches to the junction. The project is still in the early stages of test planning, but it is already clear that despite a tight schedule its safety-critical nature demands careful and thorough testing.
You have been asked to decide whether automated test design would deliver benefits. Which characteristic of automated test design is MOST important for the development of this system?

A) Testware can be generated in various output formats, e.g. for use by different tools
B) Testware generated by tools usually contains fewer mistakes than testware created manually
C) Less maintenance effort for the testware after the system has gone live
D) Creating the model will expose defects in the test basis early in the project

Solutions: