Top 20 Manual Testing Interview Questions and Answers

In this Manual Software Testing interview questions article, I have collected the most frequently asked questions by interviewers.

1) What does Software Testing mean?

• Software testing is a validation process that confirms that a system works as per the business requirements. It qualifies a system on various aspects such as usability, accuracy, completeness, efficiency, etc.

2) Why is Software Testing required?

• Software Testing is necessary because we all make mistakes. Software testing is really required to point out the defects and errors that were made during the development phases. ...

• Example: Programmers may make a mistake during the implementation of the software.

3) When should you start the testing process?

• Testing should begin from the inception of the project. Once you get the requirements base lined, System testing plan and test case preparation should start. It also helps in exploring any gaps in the functional requirements.

4)  What does Quality Assurance mean in Software testing?

• Quality Assurance is the process of planning and defining the way of monitoring and implementing the quality(test) processes within a team and organization. This method defines and sets the quality standards of the projects.

5) What does Quality Control mean in Software testing?

• Quality Control is the process of finding defects and providing suggestions to improve the quality of the software. The methods used by Quality Control are usually established by quality assurance. It is the primary responsibility of the testing team to implement quality control.

6) What does Validation mean in Software testing?

• In software testing, validation is a means to confirm that the developed product doesn’t have any bugs and working as expected. It comprises of the following activities.

  1. Non-functional testing
  2. Functional testing

7) What is the difference between the Test Plan and Test Strategy?

• Test Strategy is at a higher level, mostly created by the Project Manager which demonstrates the overall approach of the testing for the entire project, whereas the Test plan depicts how the testing should be performed for a particular application, falling under a project.

8) Define White Box Testing?

• White-box testing is a method of software testing that tests internal structures or workings of an application, as opposed to its functionality. In white-box testing an internal perspective of the system, as well as programming skills, are used to design test cases.

9) Define Black Box Testing?

• Black Box Testing is a standard software testing approach that requires testers to assess the functionality of the software as per the business requirements. They treat the software as a black box and validate it as per the end-user point of view.

10) Explain the Positive Testing approach?

• The purpose of this testing is to ensure whether the system is confirming to the requirements or not.

11) Explain the Negative Testing approach?

• The purpose of this testing is to identify what the system should not do. It helps uncover potential flaws in the software.

12) What are Test Cases?

• A test case is a sequence of actions and observations that are used to verify the desired functionality.

• A good test case helps to identify problems in the requirements or design of an application.

13) What are the different types of software testing?

• Following is the list of various testing types used by manual testers.

1. Unit testing
2. Integration testing
3. Regression testing
4. Shakeout testing
5. Smoke testing
6. Functional testing
7. Performance testing
   • Load testing
   • stress testing
   • Endurance testing
8. White box and Black box testing
9. Alpha and Beta testing
10. System testing

14) What is the Functional Testing?

• Functional testing deals with the functional aspect of the application. This technique tests that the system is behaving as per the requirement and specification. These are directly linked with customer requirements. We validate the test cases against the specified requirement and make the test results as pass or fail accordingly.
• Examples include regression, integration, system, smoke, etc

15) What is the Non Functional Testing?

• Nonfunctional testing, on the other hand, tests the non-functional aspect of the application. It does not focus on the requirement, but environmental factors like performance, load, and stress. These are not explicitly specified in the requirement but are prescribed in the quality standards. So, as QA we have to make sure that these testing are also given sufficient time and priority.

16) What is meant by Alpha Testing?

• Alpha Testing is a type of software testing performed to identify bugs before releasing the product to real users or to the public. Alpha Testing is one of the user acceptance testing.

17) What is meant by Beta Testing?

• Beta Testing is performed by real users of the software application in a real environment. Beta testing is one of the type of User Acceptance Testing.

18) What is meant by Gamma Testing?

• Gamma testing is the final stage of the testing process conducted before software release. It makes sure that the product is ready for market release according to all the specified requirements. Gamma testing focuses on software security and functionality.

19) What is the primary difference between Debugging & Testing?

• Testing is to find out defects while using a product, whereas debugging is to reach the part of the code, causing failure.

• Debugging is isolating the problem area in the code done by a developer, whereas Testing is identifying the bug in an application and done by a tester.

20) What does it mean by STLC?

• The STLC is an acronym for the Software Testing Life Cycle. It is a testing model that proposes to execute test execution in a systematic and planned way. In the STLC model, many activities occur to improve the quality of the product.

• The STLC model lays down the following steps:

1.  Requirement Analysis
2.  Test Planning
3.  Test Case Development
4.  Environment Setup
5.  Test Execution
6.  Test Cycle Closure