Case Studies & Practical Application Flashcards
7 cards from real Software Testing practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Case Studies & Practical Application flashcards as text
A team discovers that 80% of defects are concentrated in 20% of the modules during a release cycle. Which testing principle does this illustrate?
Answer: Defect clustering
Defect clustering states that defects tend to concentrate in a small number of modules, so testing effort should focus on those high-risk areas.
An e-commerce site's checkout process fails only when users apply a discount code AND pay with a gift card simultaneously. What type of testing would have best caught this defect?
Answer: Pairwise (combinatorial) testing
Pairwise testing systematically covers combinations of inputs, making it well-suited to catch defects that only appear when specific feature pairs interact.
A QA engineer runs the same regression suite every sprint for six months and defect detection drops to near zero, yet production incidents continue. This is most likely caused by:
Answer: The pesticide paradox
The pesticide paradox describes how repeatedly running the same tests causes them to stop finding new defects, requiring tests to be regularly reviewed and updated.
During UAT, business users reject a feature that passed all functional tests. The most likely root cause is:
Answer: Requirements were not validated with stakeholders early enough
UAT failures after passing functional tests typically indicate a gap between documented requirements and actual stakeholder expectations, caused by insufficient upfront validation.
A banking app passes all security tests in a staging environment but is breached in production. Which factor is the most plausible cause?
Answer: Staging environment had different network configurations and security controls than production
Environment discrepancies between staging and production—such as firewall rules, TLS settings, or service configurations—are a common root cause of defects that only appear in production.
A mobile app is released and users report it crashes on older Android versions not tested by QA. What testing strategy was most neglected?
Answer: Compatibility testing
Compatibility testing verifies that software functions correctly across different devices, OS versions, and environments, which was insufficient here.
A project uses risk-based testing and decides to skip testing low-risk modules to meet a deadline. Later, a defect in a skipped module causes a major outage. This scenario best demonstrates:
Answer: That risk assessments must be periodically reassessed as conditions change
Risk assessments can become outdated; modules initially rated low-risk may become high-risk as the system or business context evolves, requiring periodic re-evaluation.