Top 50 Testlink interview questions and answers

Table of Contents

1) What Is A Bug?

A computer bug is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program that prevents it from working correctly or produces an incorrect result.

2) What Is A Test Case?

Test case is set of input values, execution preconditions, expected results and execution Post conditions, developed for a particular objective or test conditions, such as to exercise a particular program path or to verify compliance with a specific requirement.

3) What Is The Purpose Of Test Plan In Your Project?

Test plan document is prepared by the test lead, it contains the contents like introduction, objectives, test strategy, scope, test items, program modules user procedures, features to be tested features not to tested approach, pass or fail criteria, testing process, test deliverables, testing, tasks, responsibilities, resources, schedule, environmental requirements, risks & contingencies, change management procedures, plan approvals, etc all these things help a test manager understand the testing he should do & what he should follow for testing that particular project.

4) When The Relationships Occur Between Tester And Developer?

Developer is the one who sends the application to the tester by doing all the necessary code in the application and sends the marshal id to the tester. The tester is the one who gives all the input/output and checks whether he is getting required output or not. A developer is the one who works on inside interfacing where as the tester is the one who works on outside interfacing.

5) When Testing Will Starts In A Project?

The testing is not getting started after the coding. After release the build the testers perform the smoke test. Smoke test is the first test which is done by the testing team. This is according to the testing team. But, before the releasing of a build the developers will perform the unit testing.

6) If A Bug Has High Severity Then Usually That Is Treated As High Priority, Then Why Do Priority Given By Test Engineers/project Managers And Severity Given By Testers?

High severity bugs affects the end users .testers tests an application with the users point of view, hence it is given as high severity. High priority is given to the bugs which affects the production. Project managers assign a high priority based on production point of view.

7) What Is The Difference Between Functional Testing And Regression Testing?

Functional testing is a testing process where we test the functionality/behaviour of each functional component of the application. i.e. minimize button, transfer button, links etc.i.e we check what is each component doing in that application.

Regression testing is the testing the behaviour of the application of the unchanged areas when there is a change in the build.i.e we check whether the changed requirement has altered the behaviour of the unchanged areas. The impacted area may be the whole of the application or Some part of the application.

8) Do U Know About Integration Testing, How Does U Integrate Different Modules?

Integration testing means testing an application to verify the data flows between the modules. For example, when you are testing a bank application, in account balance it shows the 100$as the available balance. but in database it shows the 120$. Main thing is “integration done by the developers and integration testing done by the testers.”

9) How You Test Database And Explain The Procedure?

Database Testing is purely done based on the requirements. You may generalize a few features but they won’t be complete. In general we look at:

Data Correctness (Defaults).
Data Storage/Retrieval.
Database Connectivity (across multiple platforms).
Database Indexing.
Data Integrity.
Data Security.

10) What Are The Contents Of Frs?

F-Function Behaviours.
R-Requirements (Outputs) of the System that is defined.
S-Specification (How, What, When, Where, and Way it behavior’s).
FRS : Function Requirement Specification.
This is a Document which contains the Functional behavior of the system or a feature. This document is also known as EBS External Behaviour Specification – Document. Or EFS External Function Specification.

11) What Is Meant By Priority And Severity?

Priority means “Importance of the defect w.r.t customer requirement.”
Severity means “Seriousness of the defect w.r.t functionality.”

12) Differentiate Between Qa And Qc?

QA:
It is process oriented.
It evolves in entire process of software development.
Preventing oriented.

QC:
It is product oriented.
Work to examine the quality of product.
Deduction oriented.

13) Explain V-model For Testing?

Typical “V” shows Development Phases on the Left hand side and Testing Phases on the Right hand side.

SRS/BRS User Acceptance.
Analysis/Design System Testing.
HLD Integration Testing.
LLD Unit Testing.
Coding.

14) Define Priority& Severity?

Severity: It is the impact of the bug on the application. Severity level should be set by tester. The Severity levels are: Low, Medium, and high, very high and Urgent. It is set by the tester and it can not be changed.

Bug causes system crash or data loss.
Bug causes major functionality or other severe problems; product crashes in obscure cases.
Bug causes minor functionality problems, may affect “fit and finish”.
Bug contains types, unclear wording or error messages in low visibility fields.

Priority: How important is it to fix the bug is priority. Priority levels are set by the team lead or test manager and it can be changed as required.

Must fix as soon as possible. Bug is blocking further progress in this area.
Should fix soon, before product release.
Fix if time; some what trivial. May be postponed.

15) What’s The Value Of Doing Regression Testing?

Regression testing is initiated after a programmer has attempted to fix a recognized problem or has added source code to a program that may have inadvertently introduced errors. It is a quality control measure to ensure that the newly modified code still complies with its specified requirements and that unmodified code has not been affected by the maintenance activity.

16) Why do you want to pursue your career in the field of software testing?

Based on my research, it is compulsory for any product to be of good quality to sustain in a market. To gain satisfaction and confidence in the quality of services or products, from the end-user, we must verify that product behaves as expected and outperforms the desired quality standards. To gain excellence and value for money spent, we should offer the best quality products and services to our clients. I strongly believe that software testing decides the measure of product quality and performance.

As I always look for quality rather than features rich product, that do not perform as expected. that is the main reason why I decided to pursue in the software testing domain.

17) Please explain your nature, habits, or likes that you think you are the right candidate for the testing?

From my childhood, I was curious about how things work, I used to ask many questions to my parents on why, how, and what about the things. During my school and college days, I was debating on many topics, reading books, and searching libraries and the internet to understand and find out reasons and answers to many of my questions. I used to visit my mentors often to know and discuss my queries. Based on my knowledge seeking nature and desire for perfection, I think I am right candidate for software testing

18) Why should we test?

It is essential to test to verify that

the product or software built behaves as expected by the customer, meets or exceeds the expectations.
personal information shared by the end-user is secured while using the product, application, or services.
The features provided in the application perform as per expectation and requirement.
The product has no serious anomalies.
By testing an application, any deviation from expected behavior can be identified and reported to the stakeholders.

19) What do you mean by testing?

Testing is a process of running an application

To identify any defects that breaks the functionality,
Features provided in software offer results as expected,
System securely display output as quickly as possible.
Software features should display same output and behave as expected every repeated instance of running it.
The software can be tested manually by testers or can run automatically using a script and follow steps that tester execute to test the application.

20) What are the features you check before you purchase the mobile?

Priority will be the price of a mobile, but various features to check before we make our choice for our dream mobile will be

Display – Screen size, resolution, browser support, movable keypad, reliable network connectivity.

Storage – capacity to store large files, images, documents, downloaded programs

Battery – long-lasting and quick charging batteries that should be easily available in market.

Processing power – for remote work situations should able to process designing graphical images, presentation, comfortable keypad, file sharing options.

Ease of use – for elderly or novice, helpful settings, and configuration.

Camera– with high-quality picture, zoom effects, large pixel resolution.

Accessories should include the charger, battery, handsfree and screen guard

The warranty should include any online help in case of difficulty to use mobile, repair of mobile due to hardware fault or replacement of mobile set.

21) What do you mean by quality?

Quality of a product or service can be defined as a level of reliability, that meets or exceeds expectations of end-user. For example, the taste of Amul ice cream or any of the dairy products available in the market produced by Amul is reliable for the quality, new products introduced in market also exceed the expectation.

22) What do you mean by performance?

Performance of a product or service is a measure of achieving continuously preferred results in the most efficient and effective way. For example, Toyota Motor Corporation produces cars that run more mileage with less fuel consumption and produce lesser pollution.

23) Can you write possible test cases for a pencil?

Following are possible test cases for pencil

Check the length of a pencil, strength of the outer wooden body,
Check thickness and resilience of graphite material (one type of crystaline carbon black in colour )
Check readability after writing text using pencil
Check if written on different types of paper, cloth, or wood.
Check how many meters can be written with the available graphite material in single pencil.
Check the written text on paper is erasable with a normal rubber eraser.
Check if a normal sharpener can sharpen the pencil or not
Check if you can write after graphite is dipped in water, oil or dust.
Check if the name of the company written has correct spelling printed on pencil or not.
Check if graphite are not broken already or brittle.

24) What do you test in One Time Password (OTP) creation application?

Before processing online financial transactions, a bank will send One Time password (OTP) on the registered mobile number of the customer trying to send money to the payee. OTP sent on mobile or an email address acts as a measure to verify that person is genuine.

The following are possible scenarios for OTP received on mobile.

OTP should be received within the specific time period,
OTP must only be received over the registered mobile number or email address provided
Previously sent OTP if used should not allow any transaction
Expired OTP should not be used in any transaction
Already used OTP can not be reapplied for any other transactions.
There should be a facility to receive OTP again.
The resent OTP should not match with any of the previously sent or future OTP.
OTP should be case sensitive and should not be accepted if not used exactly as received on mobile or email.

25) What are the essentials of software testing?

Following are important artifacts essential for testing any software application

Test strategy is high-level document that defines test approach for the software, what features are essential to test (objective of testing), how to test (methodology), Types of testing to be carried out, and execution of tests.

Test plan decides which tests are for manual testing and which one is for automated testing (distribution of testing task), Who will test what(test schedule), and when to start testing and end testing (duration within which testing should complete)

Test cases are scenarios with steps to be carried out, mapped to requirements with the expected output, to be carried out during testing of an application with status for each scenario, based on the actual result. Test cases can be executed manually or converted into scripts to be executed with the help of tools like selenium or QTP.

Test Data is the valid values that are fed to an application as inputs while running an application in order to test it. It is mandatory to design valid test data as per the scenario that results in expected output. In case the actual output differs from the expected output, the deviation is reported as a bug in the defect management system.

Test Environment is a system configured that mimick or match to system specifications at the client, in order to run software on this system to verify how the system at client behave for the tests and use cases.

26) What are desktop applications?

Desktop applications are those software that can be installed on standalone machine called as client machine (desktop or laptop). These software use native resources of standalone machine such as network, CPU, memory and storage, in order to perform specific task for which they are designed for. Desktop applications are designed to run on standalone machine, by single user. Multiple users can access the printer, scanners if they are LAN connected with desktop applications.

Some examples of desktop application are Windows file explorer – to access files stored on hard drive of local machine, Microsoft’s office applications such as word, excel, PowerPoint to write and access documents, generate tabular reports on finance and design presentations, Web browsers to access websites and searching information on the internet.

27) How to test desktop applications?

Desktop applications are feature-based applications, where users should be proficient in operating such applications, understand its features, accessing the menu, submenu. software’s features can be tested with Graphical user interface tests, end to end testing, and functional testing. Non-functional testing will depend on stand-alone machine’s limited resources such as CPU, memory, storage, accessing files, or use features like printer/scanner if desktop applications are connected in local network.

28) What are web-based applications?

Web-based application need web server in order to host them, visitors need internet connection and need a browser to access the web site, internally web sites process user requests and send responses via hyper Text Transfer Protocol(HTTP) . Multiple users can access same feature of web application at same time simultaneously.

examples of web-based application are e-commerce portals for online purchase of products of our choice (amazon.com, Flipkart, bookmyshow.com), websites of most of the companies, universities, search engines (google.com, altavista.com)

29) What is expected from the testing team on testing a software application?

It is expected while testing a software, tester should reveal all the defects and deviations from requirements, while running an application such that it should break. Tester should understand domain knowledge, able to design actual scenarios, conditions that are not thought of and not handled by developer, able to configure specifications and preconditions to verify how application performs. Have analytical knowledge and logical thinking; think out of box while testing software.

30) What is expected from the testing team on testing a software application?

31) What is expected from the testing team on testing a software application?

32) What are the main differences between Quality Assurance, Quality Control, and Software Testing?

Software Quality Assurance encompasses the whole development process, monitoring/improving the process, ensures the adherence to the agreed-upon standards and procedures. And it guarantees the discovery of bugs and validation of their fixes.

Quality Control sets up the process to determine bugs and sharing feedbacks to raise the quality of the application under test. It’s probably the testing team which carries out the quality control process.

Software Testing is again a process which begins with discovering bugs and ends with the final validation of the bug-fix. It also confirms the product meets the customer criteria and the procedures set by the organization.

33) What is the right time to commence the QA activities?

Ideally, we should begin QA activities as early as the project kicks off. There are many advantages of a timely start like we get more time to set standards for achieving the quality.

Any delay in QA roadmap directly impacts the cost, time, and efforts for a project.

34) What are the differences between a Test Plan and a Use Case?

A Test Plan comprises of all the elements that form the test strategy. It includes the application getting tested, the scope of testing, the QA activities, roles/responsibilities and deliverables.

Whereas a Use Case standardizes the way user reacts in a situation and how the system responds. It results in the creation of diagrams, flowcharts, and the pre/post conditions.

35) What are the differences between a Test Plan and Test Strategy?

Test Strategy is a high-level plan usually initiated by software quality assurance manager. It captures all the primary testing activities. It is basically for the stakeholders who have high influence but low interest in the project.

Whereas a Test Plan provides more details on how the testing should take place in the entire project lifecycle.

36) How does the severity of a bug differ from its priority?

The priority defines the urgency of a bug to get fixed. There are factors to consider e.g. Fix is affecting some other functionality or the bug is blocking a certain feature.

The severity depicts the impact of a defect on the application. It determines the level of damage that could affect the integrity of the data in the system.

37) What is a good test case?

A test case is a sequence of operations controlled by constraints to determine an application, product or service is working correctly to the expectations.

Make sure it covers all the test conditions and provides a proper definition.

Next, read the below examples and see the difference between a bad and good test case.

Bad test case.
Verify if login works.
Good test case.
Open the login screen, enter the username – xyz@testmail.com and password as “12345678”.
Press the login button.
Verify if the user dashboard is visible in not more than 2 seconds.

38) What are the data points you should add while writing a good test case?

Following are the qualities that constitute a good test case.

Test case ID
Test description
Priority
Severity
Environment
Product version
Steps required
Expected output
Actual output

39) When do you decide to stop testing?

Usually, it’s the test plan which covers the ballpark estimates of the testing cycles. But applications are complex in nature. And it’s not easy to predict the exact time to complete the testing.

However, below are the indicators that signal to stop or halt testing.

Deadlines (Release or Testing timelines)
Test case completion with expected pass percentage.
Testing cost overruns.
Attained the desired coverage of code/functionality/requirements.
Defect discovery rate falls below the threshold.

40) What if QA starts involving in digging out production issues?

It’s a good practice for QA to check on production issues. They will get to learn the gaps that could have possibly led the bug to leak through the QA gates.

However, such issues occur mostly due to environment mismatch. A small tweak in registry setting, resetting browser cache or restarting the backend service fixes the problem.

By lending support to production, QA can expect to find out untested areas and add them in their test plan. So it’s a worth the exercise which will ensure quality in the long term.

41) As a QA tester, who will you report or submit your test cases?

There are a no. of people involved in the QA process. Also, it’s better for your test cases to cross through many eyes.

Hence, you can refer them to the following.

To Test Lead for getting them reviewed.
To BA for making sure the test coverage.
To DEV team for ensuring the functionality coverage.

42) What do you think, how much testing will be sufficient?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions in a software testing interview. There is no one answer to how much software testing is enough. You can frame your own answer to this question. As per BCS/ISTQB, which is a well-known Software Testing Foundation, it is not possible to test software for every possible situation. A tester should examine factors like quality, the risk involved, budget, and time constraints.

43) What are the common problems in the software development process?

Following are some common problems in the software development process:

Bad requirements
Unrealistic schedules
Inadequate testing
Adding new features
Poor communication

44) What are the different types of functional testing?

Below are some types of functional testing:

Smoke testing
Sanity testing
Integration testing
Regression testing
Localization testing
User acceptance testing

45) What are the different types of non-functional testing?

Below are some types of non-functional testing:

Performance testing Usability Testing
Security Testing
Installation testing
Recovery testing

46) Define Testware.

Testware is a subset of software that encompasses artifacts produced in the test process to execute, plan, and design texts like expected results, scripts, databases, and inputs. It is used to explain the materials required in the test.

47) Explain branch testing.

Branch testing is a testing method that ensures that each one of the possible branches from each decision point is executed at least once. It ensures that all reachable code is executed.

48) Name some automation challenges that the SQA team faces while testing?

The adaptability of the test case for automation
Mastering the automation tool
Reusability of automation script
Automating complex test cases

49) What are the advantages of destructive testing?

Determines the quality of welds
Entertains compliance with regulations
Verifies properties of a material
Helps you to reduce costs, failures, and accidents

50) Explain what is MR and why we are using it in testing?

MR is termed as Modification Request also known as a Defect report. It is useful for testing for reporting errors/suggestions/problems in the software.

51) What is the rule of a “Test Driven Development”?

Test-Driven Development focused on creating test cases before writing the actual code which indicates that you are writing the code for the tests before writing it for the application.