Top 30 Interview Questions to crack the QA interview

1. What is the difference between Quality Assurance, Quality Control, and testing?

Quality Assurance is the process of planning and defining the way of monitoring and implementing the quality (test) processes within a team and the organization. This method basically defines and sets the quality standards of the projects.

Quality Control is the process of finding defects and providing suggestions to improve the quality of the software. The methods used by Quality Control are usually established by quality assurance. It is the primary responsibility of the testing team to implement quality control.

Testing is the process of finding defects/bugs. It validates whether the software built by the development team meets the requirements set by the user and the standards set by the organization. In testing the main focus is on finding bugs and the testing team acts as a quality gatekeeper.

2. When do you think QA activities should start?

QA activity should start from the beginning of the project. The more early it starts the more beneficial it is to set the standards for achieving the quality. If the QA activities get delayed it will result in more cost, time, and effort.

3. Explain the software testing life cycle?

Software Testing Life Cycle refers to a testing process that has specific steps to be executed in a definite sequence to ensure that the quality goals have been met. It includes the following phases of testing:

• Requirement Analysis
• Test Planning
• Test Design
• Test Environment Setup
• Test Execution
• Test Closure

4. Define a format for writing a good test case?

A good test case should follow the below format:

• Test case ID
• Test case description
• Severity
• Priority
• Environment
• Build version
• Steps to execute
• Expected results
• Actual results

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5. What is the difference between the Test Plan and Test Strategy?

Test plan basically depicts how the testing should be performed for a particular application, falling under a project, whereas Test Strategy is at a higher level, mostly created by the Project Manager which demonstrates the overall approach of the testing for the entire project.

6. What is a good test case?

In simple words, a good test case is one that finds a defect. But all test cases will not find defects, so a good test case can also be one that has all the prescribed details and coverage.

7. Do you think QA’s can also participate to resolve production issues?

Yes!! It would be a good learning curve for QA’s to participate in resolving production issues. Many a time production issues could be resolved by clearing the logs or making some registry settings or by restarting the services. These kinds of environmental issues could be very well fixed by the QA team. Also, If QAs have an insight on resolving the production issues, they may also include them while writing the test cases, and this way they can contribute to enhance quality and try to minimize the production defects.

8. What would you do if you have a large suite to execute in very little time?

In that case, we should prioritize the test case at first instance and execute the high priority test cases first and then move on to the lower priority ones. This way we can make sure that the important aspects of the software are tested.

Alternatively, we may also seek customer preference that which is the most important functions of the software according to them, and we should start testing from those areas and then gradually move to those areas which are of less importance.

9. Suppose you find a bug in production, how would you make sure that the same bug is not introduced again?

The best way is to immediately write a test case for the production defect and include it in the regression suite. Also, many a time we can also think of alternate test cases or similar kinds of test cases and include them in our planned execution.

10. What is the difference between functional and non-functional testing?

Functional Testing: Functional testing basically deals with the functional aspect of the application. This technique tests that the system is behaving according to the requirement and specification. These are directly linked with customer requirements. We validate the test cases against the specified requirement and make the test pass or failed accordingly. Functional testing includes regression, integration, system, smoke, etc.

Non Functional Testing: Non-functional testing tests the non-functional aspect of the application. It tests NOT the requirement, but the environmental factors like performance, load, and stress. These are not explicitly specified in the requirement but are prescribed in the quality standards. So, as QA we have to make sure that these testings are also given sufficient time and priority.

11. What is negative testing? How is it different from positive testing?

Negative testing is a technique that validates that the system behaves gracefully in case of any invalid inputs. For example, in case the user enters any invalid data in a text box, the system should display a proper message instead of the technical message which the user does not understand.

Negative testing is different from positive testing in a way that positive testing validates that our system works as expected and compares the test results with the expected results. Most of the time scenarios for negative testing are not mentioned in the functional requirement documents. As a QA we have to identify the negative scenarios and should have provisions to test those.

12. What are the different artifacts you refer to when you write the test cases?

The main artifacts used are:

• Functional requirement specification
• Requirement understanding document
• Use Cases
• Wireframes
• User Stories
• Acceptance criteria
• Many a time UAT test cases

13. How would you ensure that your testing is complete and has good coverage?

Requirements traceability matrix and Test coverage matrices will help us to determine that our test cases have good coverage. Requirement traceability matrices will help us to determine that the test conditions are enough so that all the requirements are covered. Coverage matrices will help us to determine that the test cases are enough to satisfy all the identified test conditions in RTM.

14. What is meant by Verification and Validation?

Validation is the process of evaluating the final product to check whether the software meets the business needs. The test execution which we do in our day-to-day life is actually the validation activity which includes smoke testing, functional testing, regression testing, systems testing, etc.

Verification is a process of evaluating the intermediary work products of a software development lifecycle to check if we are on the right track to creating the final product.

15. Have you ever managed to write the test cases without having any documents?

Yes, many a time we have a situation where we have to write test cases without having any existing documents. In that case, the best way is to

• Collaborate with the BA and development team.
• Find out some mails which have some information.
• Find out older test cases/regression suite.
• If the feature is new, try to read the wiki pages or help the application to have an idea.
• Sit with the developer and try to understand the changes being made.
• Based on your understanding, identify the test condition and send it to BA or stakeholders to review them.

16. What are the different verification techniques you know?

There are 3 verification techniques:

Review, Inspection, and walk-through

1) Review – It is a method by which the code/test cases are examined by an individual other than the author who has produced it. It is one of the easiest and best ways to ensure coverage and quality.

2) Inspection – It is a technical and disciplined way to examine and correct the defects in the test artifact or code. Because it is disciplined, it has various roles:

• Moderator – Who facilitates the entire inspection meeting
• Recorder – Who records the minutes of the meeting, defects that occurred, and other points discussed.
• Reader – The one who will read out the document/code. The leader also leads the entire inspection meeting.
• Producer – The author. They are ultimately responsible to update their document/code as per the comments.
• Reviewer – All the team can be considered as a reviewer. This role can also be played by some group of experts if the project demands.

3) Walk-through – It is a process in which the author of the document/code reads the content and gets the feedback.

17.What is the difference between Load and Stress testing?

Stress Testing is a technique that validates the behavior of the system when it executes under stress. To explain, we reduce the resources and check the behavior of the system. We first understand the upper limit of the system and gradually reduce the resources and check the system behavior.

In Load testing, we validate the system behavior under the expected load. The load can be of concurrent users or resources, accessing the system at the same time.

18. Have you used any Automation tools? What are the different automation tools?

The different automation tools are:

• Telerik Test Studio.
• Selenium
• Robotium
• TestComplete
• Watir
• Visual Studio Test Professional. …
• QTP (UFT)

19. In case you have any doubts regarding your project, how do you approach it?

In case of any doubts, first, try to get it clear by reading the available application help. In case of doubts still persisting, ask your supervisor or the senior member of your team.

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20. How do you determine which piece of software requires how much testing?

We can know this factor by finding out the Cyclomatic Complexity.

The technique helps to identify the below 3 questions for the programs/features:

• Is the feature/program testable?
• Is the feature/ program understood by everyone?
• Is the feature/program reliable enough?

As a QA we can use this technique to identify the “level” of our testing.

It is a practice that if the result of Cyclomatic complexity is more or a bigger number than that piece of functionality to be of complex nature and hence we conclude as a tester; that the piece of code/functionality requires in-depth testing. On the other hand, if the result of the Cyclomatic Complexity is a smaller number, then the functionality is of less complexity and decides the scope accordingly. As a QA it’s very important that we understand the entire testing lifecycle and should be able to suggest changes in our process if required. The goal is to deliver high-quality software and thus, a QA should take all the necessary measures to improve the process and the way the testing team executes the tests.

21. What is a Test Plan?

Answer: A test plan is a document that consists of the scope, approach, resources, an outline of the testing project as well as the activities for tracking the progress of the project.

The test plan is a record of processes which include:

• Testing tasks
• Testing environment
• Design techniques
• Entry and exit criteria
• Any risks, etc.

22. Enlist the priority of the testing tasks defined by the QA team in product development.

Answer: The testing tasks can be done as per the priority in the following way:

• A test plan is prepared consisting of the outline and scope of the testing project.
• Test cases are prepared to cover all the major and minor functionalities with the full data required for testing.
• Execution of the test cases as per the functionalities implemented with the coming builds of the testing project in the testing cycle.
• Defect reporting with re-verification as well as tracking its progress.
• Preparing the test execution report summary.

23. Define Use Case Testing.

Answer: Use case testing can be defined as the functional black-box testing technique which captures the series of interactions that have occurred between ‘actors’ and ‘system’. Here ‘Actors’ are represented by the users and their interactions.

Some of the characteristics of the use case testing are:

• Functional requirements of the project are organized.
• Records path or scenarios from start to finish.
• Can cover integration defects, i.e. the defects that occurred as a result of interaction between different components.
• It describes the main flows as well as the exceptional flow of the events.
• Any pre-conditions that are required for the use case to work should be specified earlier.

24. What is destructive testing?

Destructive testing is defined as the form of testing that is carried out by the testing team to determine the point of failure of the product under different loads i.e. to evaluate the application’s structural performance to determine its strength, toughness, hardness, or say robustness.

The benefits of Destructive testing are:

• The weakness of the application design is determined.
• Determine the service life of the application.
• Helps to reduce costs and failure.

25. Why is Automation Testing preferred over Manual Testing?

Well, Both Automation testing and manual testing have their own importance and existence in the world of testing.

Given below are some important aspects due to which Automation Testing is preferred over Manual Testing:

• The same test script can be used every time to run the test, thus automation testing is considered the most reliable and efficient one.
• Mostly preferred in case of regression testing and repeated execution.
• Automation testing is considered to be a cost-effective one in the case of long-term execution and thus ensures a better quality of software.
• Test scripts are reusable, fast and everyone can see the results.
• Tools used for automation testing are fast and reliable when compared to the manual approach.

26. Why is Performance Testing necessary to be done for any application?

Answer: In simple language, Performance testing is done to determine the behavior and response of an application under various situations. This helps to gather information regarding application stability, scalability, speed, etc.

The reasons for doing performance testing are:

• It determines the response time and performance of an application component under the workload.
• The response time of the user’s activity is calculated.
• Requires experienced programmers with extensive technical language.
• Determines the behavior of the application under load i.e. when the number of the user increases instantly.

27. What is data-driven testing?

Data-driven testing is an automation testing framework, which tests the different input values on the AUT. These values are read directly from the data files. The data files may include CSV files, excel files, data pools, and many more.

28. What is agile testing and what is the importance of agile testing?

Agile testing is software testing that is done using agile Methodology. The importance of this testing is that distinct from the normal testing process, this testing does not wait for the development team to complete the coding first and then doing testing. The coding and testing both goes can be performed simultaneously. It requires continuous customer interaction.

29. What is Ad Hoc testing?

It is a testing phase where the tester tries to break the system by randomly trying the system’s functionality. It can include negative testing as well.

30. What is CRUD testing and how to test CRUD?

CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update and Delete. CRUD testing can be done using SQL statements.