Aptitude Knowledge

Scenario:

You are testing 2 programs and have 3 weeks to test them both. Having run all of your tests on both programs you finish testing within 2 weeks. You need to decide which of the 2 programs you would re-visit and run further tests against. Choose which program you would re-test (can choose only one!) – and state you reasons:

Program A

Programmer:

A Complexity Level: 2

Lines of Code: 2000

Number of tests: 100

Number of bugs found: 10

1 high severity, 3 medium & 6 low)

Program B

Programmer:

B Complexity Level: 2

Lines of Code: 2000

Number of tests: 100

Number of bugs found: 50 (10 high severity, 25 medium & 15 low)

Answer:

Key points:

1. Different programmers wrote A and B

2. Complexity level of the programs are the same

3. Size of the programs are the same

4. Tester is the same for testing A and B

5. Number of tests run on both programs is the same

6. Number of bugs is higher in program B

Program B seems to have far more faults therefore we would be inclined to spend the further week testing Program B, as there is likely to be more bugs to find. We may also not be very confident at this point with Program B therefore we need to see our confidence increased.

An ATM has been specified to work in the following way:

Enter a card and if the card is invalid reject the card and exit system. If it is a valid card then enter a PIN number. Check to see if the PIN is invalid

– if it is then display a message ‘invalid pin number, please re-enter’. If 3 attempts are made with an invalid pin then the machine keeps the card. If it is a valid PIN then the user can select one of the following transactions:

• Cash Withdrawal without receipt

• Cash Withdrawal with receipt

• Balance Inquiry

• Statement request

• Cancel

What tests would you produce to test this application? State any assumptions when testing

Answer:

1. Invalid Card – reject card and exit

2. Valid Card and Invalid PIN – error message ‘invalid pin…’ (then enter valid pin)

3. Valid Card and Invalid PIN – error message ‘invalid pin…’ (then enter another 2 invalid Pins)

4. Valid Card, Valid Pin & Cancel (correct length pin)

5. Valid Card, Valid Pin in a large number – but the pin number contains more than the maximum number – should error

6. Valid Card, Valid Pin & Cash Withdraw without receipt

7. Valid Card, Valid Pin & Cash Withdraw with receipt

8. Valid Card, Valid Pin & Balance inquiry

9. Valid Card, Valid Pin & Statement Request

Potential Problems/Omissions

.. No date on log as to when raised

.. No keywords (i.e. screen) so that searches can be performed preventing duplication of fault logs

.. No status of the log (opened/fixed/closed/cleared etc.)

.. No owner of the log. .. Has priority – but no severity (i.e. risk to the customer)

.. No version number of the system being tested – it is very likely that the testers are on a different version to development and that it was a fault but has been inadvertently fixed on this latest software

.. Query the priority of this log (should it be a 3?)

.. No actual error message on the log – this may give some clue to the developer about the nature of the fault

.. Response seems to be leading to a dialogue – if we are not careful this fault will never be fixed! Tester should talk to the developer rather than sending another message via the fault log.

.. The response by the developer points to another part of the system (security) – this may be an indication of developers trying to quickly close the issue without performing sufficient investigation. It could however be because the tester has not spent enough time documenting the problem.