About

 Hello! welcome to my blog.

This blog is about software quality assurance, web/test development technologies,health information technology and interview questions-answers. Answers I have posted in this blog are all my point of views. I posted them because-- these are the frequently asked questions in my opinion-- to help those who are new to quality assurance and testing world or IT world in general. Dear visitors, you can also share and discuss answers so that someone can benefit from your contributions. Please share your experience, questions or answers to help other candidates to succeed in interviews. 

Thank you!

I always believe in giving my 100% to any role. I  believe in cooperation, the power of positive attitude and eagerness to help other in need.  Be enthusiastic about new technology and tools if you wish to be a successful professional in IT environment. Here learning never stops!!! 

Also, being a good human being helps you to be a meaningful asset in every place including at workplace. Be positive, hard working and never stop learning new things.

Update...

Currently I am focusing on Health Information Technology, known as Health-IT. Recent progress in the healthcare system has impacted and is going to impact everyone in the near future. We are very close to the implementation of  Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Lets hope it will be beneficial to all of us ans medical bill will not be a nightmare. Hopefully there will be plenty of job opening in this area in 2014 and 2015 as well. I will update information related to Health Information Technology under HEALTH IT tab as I will go through  this journey myself. 

Thank you all!!!

How will ICD-10 improve quality of care?

How will ICD-10 improve quality of care?

ISTQB Question set # 1

 Highlight the area next to the 'Answer:' for right answer.

1. Which one of the following are non-functional testing methods?
a.  System testing
b.  Usability testing
c.  Performance testing
d.  Both b & c

Answer: d

2. Pick the best definition of quality
a.  Quality is job one
b.  Zero defects
c.  Conformance to requirements
d.  Work as designed

Answer:C

3. Boundary value testing...
a.  Is the same as equivalence partitioning tests
b.  Test boundary conditions on, below and above the edges of input and output equivalence classes
c.  Tests combination of input circumstances
d.  Is used in white box testing strategy

Answer: b

5. White Box Techniques are also called as

a.  Structural Testing

b.  Design Based Testing

c.  Error Guessing Technique

d.  Experience Based Technique

Answer: a

6. Which of the following is a MAJOR task of test planning?

a  Scheduling test analysis and design tasks.

b Initiating corrective actions.

c Monitoring progress and test coverage.

d Measuring and analyzing results.

Answer: a

7. Where may functional testing be performed?

a.  At system and acceptance testing levels only.

b.  At all test levels.

c.  At all levels above integration testing.

d.  At the acceptance testing level only.

Answer: a

8. Who would USUALLY perform debugging activities?

a. Developers
b. Analysts

c. Testers

d. Incident Managers

Answer: a

9. As part of which test process do you determine the exit criteria?
a. Test planning.
b. Evaluating exit criteria and reporting.
c. Test closure.
d. Test control.

Answer: a

10.What is beta testing?
a. Testing performed by potential customers at the developers location.
b. Testing performed by potential customers at their own locations.
c. Testing performed by product developers at the customer's location.
d. Testing performed by product developers at their own locations.
 
Answer: b

11. A thermometer measures temperature in whole degrees only. If the temperature falls below 18 degrees, the heating is switched off. It is switched on again when the temperature reaches 21 degrees. What are the best values in degrees to cover all equivalence partitions?

a. 15, 19 and 25.
b. 17, 18 and19.
c. 18, 20 and22.
d. 16, 26 and 32.

Answer: a

12. Which of the following is TRUE?
a. Confirmation testing is testing fixes to a set of defects and Regression testing is testing to establish whether any defects have been introduced as a result of changes.
b. Confirmation testing is testing to establish whether any defects have been introduced as a result of changes and Regression testing is testing fixes to a set of defects.
c. Confirmation testing and Regression testing are both testing to establish whether any defects have been introduced as a result of changes.
d. Confirmation testing and Regression testing are both testing fixes to a set of defects.

Answer: a  

13. Deliverables of the test design phase include all of there except:
a. Test Data 
b. Test Data Plan
c. Test Summary report
d. Test Summary Plan 


Answer: c

14. Which of the following is not decided in the test-planning phase?
a) Schedules and deliverables
b) Hardware and software
c) Entry and exit criteria
d) Types of test cases

Answer: d

15. Deciding how much testing is enough should take into account:
i. Level of Risk including Technical and Business product and project risk
ii. Project constraints such as time and budget
iii. Size of Testing Team
iv. Size of the Development Team

a) i, ii, iii are true and iv is false
b) i, iv are true and ii is false
c) i, ii are true and iii, iv are false
d) ii, iii, iv are true and i is false

Referring to ISTQB Syllabus:

1.1.5 How Much Testing is Enough? (K2)
Deciding how much testing is enough should take account of the level of risk, including technical, safety, and business risks, and project constraints such as time and budget.  Risk is discussed further in Chapter 5.

Testing should provide sufficient information to stakeholders to make informed decisions about the release of the software or system being tested, for the next development step or handover to customers. 

Answer: c

16. Which of the following is not phase of the Fundamental Test Process?
a) Test Planning and Control
b) Test implementation and Execution
c) Requirement Analysis
d) Evaluating Exit criteria and reporting

Referring to ISTQB Syllabus:

1.4 Fundamental Test Process (K1) 35 minutes

The fundamental test process consists of the following main activities:

• Test planning and control
• Test analysis and design
• Test implementation and execution
• Evaluating exit criteria and reporting
• Test closure activities

Answer: c

17. COTS is:

A. Commercial off the shelf software

B. Compliance of the software

C. Change control of the software

D. Capable off the shelf software

Answer: a

18. The bug tracking system will need to capture these phases for each bug.
I. Phase injected
II. Phase detected
III. Phase fixed
IV. Phase removed

A. I, II and III
B. I, II and IV
C. II, III and IV
D. I, III and I

Answer: B

19. Correct bug life cycle
A. Open, Assigned, Fixed, Closed
B. Open, Fixed, Assigned, Closed
C. Assigned, Open, Closed, Fixed
D. Assigned, Open, Fixed, Closed

Answer: A

 

Functions in SQL

General Functions:
NVL, NVL2


Character Functions: 

Character functions accept character data as an input and can return both character and numeric values. Character functions can be divided into case-conversion and character manipulation types.

LOWER, UPPER, INITCAP are the three case conversion functions. 

Some Character -manipulations functions are : CONCAT, SUBSTR, INSTR, LENGTH, LPAD, TRIM

Number functions:
Number functions accept numeric input and return numeric input.
ROUND: rounds to the nearest unit of 100.
TRUNC: truncates the column, or value to n decimal places.
MOD: finds the reminder of the first argument divided by second argument. It is frequently used to determine whether a value is odd or even.
Date related functions:
Oracle's default date format is : DD-MON-RR. RR date is similar to YY but it also specify century. RR determines the default value for century in INSERT.
SYSDATE function:
 Returns current database server date and time. If your database in London and you are in California, it will display London current time. If you want California time use - CURRENT_DATE function. You can use arithmetic operators with SYSDATE function.
 Date-Manipulation functions : MONTHS_BETWEEN, ADD_MONTHS, NEXT_DAY,  ROUND, TRUNC, and LAST_DAY
Date function can be combined with Arithmetic function: date+number, Date-number, date-date, Date +number/24.
Data Type Conversion: 
TO_NUMBER, TO_DATE, TO_CHAR, TO_DATE 
Nesting Functions:
Nested functions are evaluated from deepest to the least deep level.
 Group functions : 

Group functions operates in multiple rows and gives a one result per group. Group functions ignores null values.  AVG, SUM, MIN, MAX, COUNT

Database Related Interview Questions

This is useful for advanced level Database Test Professional and Database Developer and DBA beginner. All questions-answers are based on Oracle Database Management System.

1. What is a Database?

An organized collection, storage of information.

2. What is DBMS?

To manage database, you need some type of system which, that system in Database Management System(DBMS). So, it is a program that stores, retrieves, and modifies data in database based on request.

3. Name some types of databases.

There are four main type of databases: hierarchical, network, relational, and object relational (this type is a new one).

4. What is Data Models?

It is a model developed before building a database system to explore the ideas, improve and understand overall database design. A data model should contains details for database developers, Database Administrators to build and maintain a database system.

5. What is a unique identifiers(UID)?

UID is any combination of attributes or relationships, or both that serves to distinguish entity. Each entity occurrence must be uniquely identifiable. Each attributes that is part of UID is tagged with #, secondary UID with(#).


6.What is primary key and foreign key?
here
7. How do you operate relational database?
By using SQL language. To access database, you can use SQL statements. There are other application programs and tools are also available. But these also use SQL language based on user's request.


8. Tell me about different types of SQL statements.
Data Manipulation Language(DML) ----- SELECT, INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE, MERGE
Data Definition Language(DML) ----- CREATE, ALTER, DROP, RENAME, TRUNCATE, COMMENT
Data Control Language(DCL)----- GRANT, REVOKE
Transaction Control----- COMMIT, ROLLBACK, SAVEPOINT


9. What is table join,  which SQL statement do you use to join tables?
Joining brings together data that is stored in different tables by specifying the link between them. It helps to display data from multiple tables. SELECT statement is used to join tables.


10. What is a Null value?
If a row lacks a data value for particular column, that is called a null. Null value means value is unavailable or inapplicable. It is not a zero or blank space. Some constraints  like NOT NULL or PRIMARY KEY prevent null value being used in the column.


11. What is Concatenation Operator?
It is used to link columns to another columns, arithmetic  expressions, constant value to make a single output column. Operator sign is - || and it is used with select statement where output column name comes after AS keyword. For example:
SELECT column1||column2 AS "OutputColumnName" from table


12. What is a Literal Character Strings ?
A literal is a character, a number, or a date that is included in a SELECT statement. It is not a column name or alias, it is something you use between || and || which will be displayed with query result. ' ' is used for date and character literal. It is used with select statement.


13. What is 'Rules of Precedence'?
It determines the order in which expression are evaluated and calculated. You can override the default order by using parentheses around the calculation that you want to calculate first.


14.How do you display the Table structure?
You can display table structure by using DESCRIBE command.It will display the column names, the data types and constraints(if any).

15: what is SQL Function?
 here


16: what is RR Date Format?
It is the default date format of some database including Oracle.The default date format is: DD-MON-RR. RR date is similar to YY but it also specify century. RR determines the default value for century in INSERT.


17. Explain about different types of joins in brief.
Natural joins:The NATURAL JOIN clause is based on the all columns in the two tables that have the same name and data types.
Self Join: Joins a table to itself.
Nonequijoins: A join condition containing something other then an equality(=) operator.
Outer Joins: returning results with no direct match.
  LEFT OUTER JOINS
  RIGHT OUTER JOINS
CROSS JOINS


18. What is a schema?
A schema is a collection of objects such as table, views, indexes, clusters, stored procedures and database links. 


19. What are the frequently used data-types in SQL(Oracle)?
Some frequently used data-types are:

Varchar2(max size specified) - Variable-length character data.
char(size) - Fixed length character data.
Number(precision, scale) - Variable-length numeric data.
date, timestamp - date and time

20 Tell me about database constraints.
Database constrains are the restrictions, that prevents the invalid data entry to the table. Constraints enforces the rules on the data and constraints must be satisfied  for the any operation to be succeed
PRIMARY KEY, UNIQUE, NULL, NOT NULL, FOREIGN KEY, CHECK are the major constraints. Constrains can be applied when creating a table or can be added later on with the alter statement.

21. What is NOT NULL constraint ?
NOT NULL constraint ensure that a NULL value is not permitted.

What is Relational Databae Management System(RDBMS) ?

 A relational database is a collections of relations among two-dimensional tables. In this model, you create several tables to store pieces of information. There are operators/a set of operators that to produce the relations.

In RDBMS,  Each row of data in a table is uniquely identified by a primary key and logically relate data from multiple tables using foreign key.

Table: Employee

Employee_ID	First_Name	Last_Name	Department_ID
101	Kobe	Bryant	55
102	Rhojan	Rondo	50
103	Ray	Allan	45

Table Name: Departments

Department_ID_ID	Dept Name	Manager_ID
10	LAL	4
11	CEL	34
11	CEL	4

 Data about different entities is stored in different tables.You may need to combined information from two tables to get a particular information. In RDBMS,  information is related by foreign keys that refers to the primary key in the same table or another table.
Above, table 'Employees' contains information about employees and table 'Departments' contains information about departments. Department_ID which is Foreign Key in Employees  table is Primary Key in Departments.


There are some rules/guidelines for assigning Primary Key and Foreign Key.
You cannot use duplicate value in primary key
Primary key generally cannot be changed
Foreign key is based on data value and is a logical pointer.
A foreign key must reference either a primary key or a unique value column.
A foreign key value must match an existing primary key value or unique key value, otherwise it must be null.
RDBMS are composed of objects or relations and are governed by constraints.

Database Testing - Conceptual Understanding

Have you ever think about what happens when you deposit any amount in your bank account?
when you deposit amount, an event occurs, a program is executed and changes the database values according to event occurred in a corresponding way. It should not only add deposit to one table and not affect other relational tables.

Basic theory is ACID, basic properties of a database transaction:

Automaticity:
An action must be either completed or aborted. The transaction cannot be partially successful. It must do ALL what it supposed to do or NOTHING. If one part of transaction fails entire the database transaction must be aborted.
If the transaction successfully completes it is said to commit. The system is responsible for ensuring that all changes to the database have been saved. If the transaction does not successfully complete, it is said to abort. The system is responsible for undoing, or rolling back, all changes the transaction has made.

Consistency:
The transaction takes the resources from one consistent state to another. Application developer is also responsible who must make sure that all known integrity constraints are enforced by the application level as well. All integrity check, constraints, Rules, and triggers must be applied during transaction.

Isolation:
Transactions execute in sequence. Each one starts after the previous one completes. Execution of one transaction is not affected by the operations of another since they do not overlap in time. The execution of each transaction is isolated from all others. (Serial execution is inadequate from a performance perspective.)

Durability:
Changes made by the committed transaction are permanent, data should be changed permanently.

A tester needs to think about capacity of database; size while deploying the QA box, how much data is there and how system is behaving with different size of data. Data mapping and Default data integrity are also important. (consistency). Now a days, Big business Software developments use OOP (Object Oriented Programming). Front end JAVA, C#, and back end Oracle, SQL Server. Another important aspect of RDBMS and OOP is related ‘object’. Mapping Objects to the relational DB based on relationship is one of the major tedious, but sensitive tasks. (Just a gist of data mapping, I am stopping this topic right here, because data mapping is a heavy weight topic and more relevant to talk within ETL).
Compatibility is another big issue. Tester is not the one to decide about what is compatible with what; it should be more on project level than test level. But, a tester can do parallel testing, migration testing, etc. after migration to new version or after adding new system.

Stored Procedure Testing:
A SP needs to broken into action based on functionality and needs to be tested separately. A tester can write negative and positive test cases based on number of arguments, data types, orders of arguments, and return value and data type of return value being passed. People often consider it is difficult (being white box type) but. If there is an existing document explaining all these, SP test is not that complex. Of course knowledge of SQL language is vital.
Other important aspects of Database testing are data type. Sometime developers mess up using same kind of data-type in front end and back end. A DB tester should make sure about it. Data type, size is also a performance related issue. It always make your marks as good tester if you to bring those issues during meetings. (if you are sure about what kind of Data-type  is right from business, performance and other technical point of view).
Data-Driven Testing is a method to test many data with same script. Creating a script to provide data is an important task of a tester. There are many automation tools to create a capture and playback the script.