Advanced Manual Testing Interview Q&A

1. What's the difference between severity and priority in defect tracking?

Answer:

• Severity indicates the impact of a defect on the application's functionality-for example, a crash is "Critical," while a typo might be "Minor."

• Priority dictates the order in which defects are fixed, based on business needs-for instance, a cosmetic bug in the checkout flow may get high priority despite low severity.

2. How do you approach risk-based testing?

Answer:

• Identify and rank features by risk-factors include business impact, usage frequency, and past defect density.

• Allocate more rigorous test effort (exploratory sessions, boundary checks) to high-risk areas, and lighter regression checks to low-risk parts.

3. Can you explain the Defect Life Cycle (Bug Lifecycle)?

Answer:

• A defect typically moves through states: New → Assigned → Open → Fixed →

Retest → Closed (with possible Reopen if validation fails).

4. What is exploratory testing, and when should it be used?

Answer:

• Exploratory testing is an unscripted, simultaneous learning-test design-execution approach, ideal for uncovering edge-case defects that scripted tests miss.

• Use it in early sprints, before hard test artifacts exist, and as a supplement to automation for critical flows.

5. What metrics do you track to measure testing effectiveness?

Answer:

• Defect Density (defects per KLOC or function points) and Defect Leakage (bugs escaped to production) gauge quality and coverage.

• Test Case Execution Rate, Automation Coverage, and Mean Time to Detect/Fix help assess team productivity and process gaps.

6. What is Defect Cascading?

Answer:

• Defect cascading in software testing means when one defect leads to the discovery of other defects. It often occurs because the original defect was not fixed properly. This cascading causes a chain reaction of errors, making it difficult to source of the problem.

• It can lead to many issues like minor performance slowdowns, system crashes, etc making it a severe risk to developers and testers.

• Understanding defect cascading can help to prevent them from happening in their process.

7. What is Beta Testing?

Answer:

Beta testing is the process of testing a software product or service in a real-world environment before its official release. It helps identify bugs and errors that may have been missed during the development process.

• During beta testing, the software is made available to a selected group of users who are willing to test the product and provide feedback to the developers.

• The beta testers typically use the software in various ways, attempting to find any issues, bugs, or usability problems.

• They then provide feedback on their experience, reporting any problems or issues encountered.