FIT Quality Assurance in Translation 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which ISO standard specifically addresses translation services and quality requirements?
- ISO 9001
- ISO 17100 (Correct answer)
- ISO 14001
- ISO 27001
Correct answer: ISO 17100
ISO 17100 is the international standard that specifies requirements for translation service providers, covering competences, resources, and processes.
Question 2: In QA terminology, what is a 'false positive' in automated quality checks?
- A correctly flagged error
- An error flagged that is not actually an error (Correct answer)
- A missed error
- A correctly accepted segment
Correct answer: An error flagged that is not actually an error
A false positive occurs when the QA tool flags something as an error when it is actually correct, requiring the translator to dismiss the alert.
Question 3: What does 'back-translation' primarily verify in a QA process?
- Stylistic fluency in the target language
- Whether the meaning was accurately transferred (Correct answer)
- Compliance with client terminology lists
- Formatting consistency
Correct answer: Whether the meaning was accurately transferred
Back-translation re-translates the target text into the source language to verify that the intended meaning was accurately conveyed.
Question 4: A translation brief (project brief) is used in QA primarily to:
- Calculate word counts for billing
- Establish scope, purpose, and target audience expectations upfront (Correct answer)
- Record reviewer comments
- Define machine translation engine settings
Correct answer: Establish scope, purpose, and target audience expectations upfront
A translation brief documents the project parameters—purpose, audience, tone, and constraints—against which quality is measured during review.
Question 5: Which of the following best describes a 'revision' in translation workflow according to ISO 17100?
- Correcting typographical errors only
- Bilingual examination of the target text against the source text by a second translator (Correct answer)
- Machine translation post-editing
- Monolingual proofreading of the final output
Correct answer: Bilingual examination of the target text against the source text by a second translator
ISO 17100 defines revision as a bilingual activity performed by a second qualified translator to check the target text against the source for accuracy and quality.
Question 6: The MQM (Multidimensional Quality Metrics) framework is used in translation QA to:
- Automate translation memory updates
- Provide a hierarchical taxonomy for categorizing and scoring translation errors (Correct answer)
- Generate machine translation output
- Measure translator keystrokes per hour
Correct answer: Provide a hierarchical taxonomy for categorizing and scoring translation errors
MQM offers a structured, extensible error typology with weighted severity levels that allows consistent, measurable quality scoring across projects.
Question 7: When a QA checklist item reads 'terminology consistency,' what is being verified?
- That font styles match the source document
- That agreed-upon terms are used uniformly throughout the translation (Correct answer)
- That sentence length mirrors the source
- That no passive voice is used
Correct answer: That agreed-upon terms are used uniformly throughout the translation
Terminology consistency checks confirm that all instances of a key term in the source are rendered with the same approved target equivalent throughout the document.
FIT Quality Assurance in Translation 2
Which ISO standard specifically addresses translation services and quality requirements?