Manual Interview Questions Part - 1

   1. What is the difference between a test plan and a QA plan?

A test plan lays out what is to be done to test the product and includes how quality control will work to identify errors and defects.  A QA plan on the other hand is more concerned with prevention of errors and defects rather than testing and fixing them.

   2. How do you test an application if the requirements are not available?

If requirements documentation is not available for an application, a test plan can be written based on assumptions made about the application.  Assumptions that are made should be well documented in the test plan.

   3. What is a peer review?

Peer reviews are reviews conducted among people that work on the same team.  For example, a test case that was written by one QA engineer may be reviewed by a developer and/or another QA engineer.

    4. How can you tell when enough test cases have been created to adequately test a system or module?

You can tell that enough test cases have been created when there is at least one test case to cover every requirement.  This ensures that all designed features of the application are being tested.

   5. Who approves test cases?

The approver of test cases varies from one organization to the next. In some organizations, the QA lead may approve the test cases while another approves them as part of peer reviews.

   6. Give an example of what can be done when a bug is found.

When a bug is found, it is a good idea to run more tests to be sure that the problem witnessed can be clearly detailed. For example, let say a test case fails when Animal=Cat and.  A tester should run more tests to be sure that the same problem doesn’t exist with Animal=dog.  Once the tester is sure of the full scope of the bug can be documented and the bug adequately reported. This question is one of the most frequently asked manual testing interview questions.

   7. Who writes test plans and test cases?

Test plans are typically written by the quality assurance lead while testers usually write test cases.

   8. Is quality assurance and testing the same?

Quality assurance and testing is not the same.  Testing is considered to be a subset of QA. QA is should be incorporated throughout the software development life cycle while testing is the phase that occurs after the coding phase.

 9. What is a negative test case?

Negative test cases are created based on the idea of testing in a destructive manner.  For example, testing what will happen if inappropriate inputs are entered into the application.

  10. If an application is in production, and one module of code is modified, is it necessary to retest just that module or should all of the other modules be tested as well?

It is a good idea to perform regression testing and to check all of the other modules as well.  At the least, system testing should be performed.