Top 10 Quality Assurance Interview Questions for Beginners

The questions asked by an interview panellist will help you decide whether the candidate applying for the job is the right person for the job at hand. Given below are the most likely interview questions encountered by beginners during an interview.

1. What is the difference between QA, QC and Software Testing?

Quality Assurance (QA) refers to the planned and systematic way of monitoring the process quality which is followed to generate a quality product. QA tracks the outcomes and adjusts the process to meet the client expectation.

Quality Control (QC) refers to the concern with the quality of the product. QC detects defects and suggests enhancements. The process set by QA is implemented by QC and QC is the responsibility of the tester.

Software Testing is the process of ensuring that the product which is developed by the developer fulfils the user requirement. The objective of testing is to detect bugs and ensure they are fixed.

2. When to start QA in a project?

The best time to begin QA is right from project start-up. This means there will be process planning to ensure the product output fulfils customer expectations in terms of quality. QA also influences inter-team communication a great deal. It provides time to step up testing environments. It is also worth noting that the testing stage begins after test plans are created, reviewed and approved.

3. What are verification and validation and difference between these two?

Verification refers to the process of evaluating steps which are followed until the development phase to decide whether they satisfy the stated requirements for that stage.

Validation is the process of evaluating the product during or at the end of the development process to find whether the product fulfils stated requirements.

The following are the key differences between verification and Validation:

• Verification is static testing whereas Validations is dynamic testing and Verification takes place before Validation.
• While Verification evaluates plans, documents, requirements and specifications, Validation evaluates a product.
• Verification inputs are checklist, issues list, walkthroughs and inspection, whereas in Validation input is the actual product in its entirety.
• Verification output involves a set of documents, plans, specifications and requirement documents whereas in Validation the actual product in its entirety is its output.

4. What is the key difference between Retesting and Regression testing?

Retesting is done to verify defects fixes. Whereas regression testing is executed to find if the defect fix has not impacted other existing functionalities which was working well before modifications were done to code.

Retesting is scheduled testing based on the defect fixes listed whereas regression testing is not always specific to any defect fix. Also regression testing can be performed for some modules or all modules. Retesting concerns itself with implementing those test cases which have failed earlier, whereas regression testing concerns itself with executing test cases that were cleared in earlier builds. Even though retesting has higher priority over regression testing, some cases see retesting and regression testing carried out in parallel.

5. What are the common problems with Software Automation?

The following are some of the common problems associated with Software Automation:

1. Purchase of tool license such as for QTP, Selenium, QC and LR
2. Deficiency in skilled Testers needed to use the tool
3. Invalidated expectation that automated tests will find all new defects
4. Maintenance and regulation required for automated tests
5. Technical issues encountered in tools

6. What is the difference between build and release?

A Build is a number assigned to installable software in turn given to testing teams for testing by the development team. Build number assigned is usually incremental and sequential.
A release is a number assigned to installable software that is handed over to the customer by the developer or tester.
The information of build, release and version are usually displayed in software help page. Using this build and release customer can let the customer team know which release version and build that they are using.

7. What is data-driven testing?

Data-driven testing refers to an automation testing part in which the test input or output values are read from data files.

For example, to assess login functionality, testers will utilize various username and password combinations, and variables are utilized to access various username and password. The list of such usernames and passwords are stored in a data table or excel sheet.

Go through our Top 30 Interview Questions to crack the QA interview to crack the Interviews.

8. What is Agile Testing?

Agile Testing refers to accelerated validation of the client requirements while producing an application of great quality. When the build is released to the testing team, application testing will begin finding bugs. As a Tester, the focus will be on end user needs and efforts will be channelled into delivering a high quality product even with reduced time frames. This will in turn aid in cutting down development costs, making implementation of test code faster, which will again greatly cut down on bugs and defects.

9. Describe Use Case Testing.

A use case is a description of the process which is executed by the end user for a specified task. Use case includes a sequence of steps which is executed by the end user to complete a certain task, or a step-wise process that displays how the application and end user will interact with each other. Use cases are mostly written from the user point of view.
The use case testing applies the use case in evaluation of the application. This is done so that the tester can examine all functionalities of the application. Use case testing spans the entire application; the tester executes this testing in a step-wise process to complete one task.

You may also like to read How QA helps you to release your Software Faster?

10. What is the testing lifecycle?

Even though there is no standard testing life cycle, it generally consists of the following phases:

1. Test Planning including Test Strategy, Test Plan and Test Bed Creation
2. Test Development includes Test Procedures, Test Scenarios and Test Cases
3. Test Execution
4. Result Analysis, comparing Expected to Actual results
5. Defect Tracking
6. Reporting

I hope that by now you have had an overview of Quality Assurance. Before you enroll in ZaranTech’s certification course on QA, do check out the tutorial for Beginners:

Conclusion

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