ISEB

Now an ISEB/ISTQB Certified Software Tester, Foundation Level

Update: Friday 13 July – Now received my certificate from ISEB/BCS. Full title is ISTQB – ISEB Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL). Well pleased with my score, which was 37 out of 40, 92.5% – so all the study and practice was worthwhile.

The other day – last Friday 6 July – I passed my ISEB/ISTQB certification exam, Foundation Level. The exam was an online one, at a VUE Pearson test centre, near Aldgate East tube. The test lasts for an hour and at the end you get a printout telling you if you passed the exam. I passed it and am now awaiting the full results, which will be sent in the post to me, by ISEB.

The book I’ve mentioned before on DevBlog – ‘Software Testing: An ISTQB-ISEB Foundation Guide’ – was very useful in learning the syllabus and getting through the exam. Also, the example tests available from ISTQB and other places also really helped.

 

 

By |July 10th, 2012|Development, ISEB, Software Testing|3 Comments
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Mind mapping software FreeMind

I’ve recently been using Mind Mapping concepts to keep track of the main points I’ve been learning whilst studying for the ISEB/ISTQB Foundation certification. The main ISEB course book covers many areas and a wealth of information, so it sometimes becomes a struggle to remember everything.

I’ve found Mind Maps help you to list the main points for a topic in a more memorable way than just writing them down or using a bullet list.

While looking for Memory Map software, I found quite a few different programs but most had a cost of some sort. Then I found FreeMind, which is a free/open source Java program. After a fairly simple download and install process, I began using FreeMind and found it a very good program, easy to use and allowed me to create Memory Maps very quickly. (Screenshots)

I would definitely recommend FreeMind if you’re looking for Memory Map software thats free and easy to use.

 

By |June 11th, 2012|Development, ISEB, Java, Other Tech, Software Testing|0 Comments
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Who needs Visio, when you can use Dia

In some of my jobs I’ve used MS Visio to create diagrams of all types, such as system diagrams and processing flow diagrams. It’s always been a good tool for creating these diagrams but is not part of MS Office package, therefore requires a separate purchase, which isn’t always possible.

Recently, I discovered a great open source (thus free) program called Dia. This provides almost all the features of Visio that I actually used and is highly recommended. According to their homepage, it runs on GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Unix and Windows – I’ve used the Windows version with no problems. You can see some screenshots here.

I’ve been using Dia to create a Software Testing diagram, so that I can visualise the various stages of Software Testing, as covered in the ISEB/ISTQB Foundation certification that I’m currently studying. Below is an example of a diagram I’m working on, created in Dia.

Dia saves in its own .dia format but you can Export to all sorts of formats, including .png which is the format of the diagram example above.

Dia also looks useful for producing UML diagrams, as it has a specific set of UML drawing tools that can be selected. That feature alone could save users a fortune as many UML-specific programs can be very expensive.

Hopefully, next on the list for Dia’s creators will be an XML Spy style app.

By |June 11th, 2012|Development, ISEB, open source, Software Testing|0 Comments
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Studying for ‘Software Testing: ISQTB-ISEB Foundation’ exam

Now that I’ve gone through the official study guide book ‘Software Testing: An ISTQB-ISEB Foundation Guide’ I need to work out my preparation for the Certification Exam.

The book itself first recommends reading through the ISTQB Syallbus document, as its the basis of the exam itself – questions are raised directly from the syllabus and the wordings are very similar. The ISTQB Syllabus can be found at http://certifications.bcs.org/upload/pdf/swt-foundation-syllabus.pdf

Next, the book recommends going through an ISEB example exam paper, to gain familiarity with the questions and to see how much you have remembered and understood. After some Googling around, I managed to find the following sample exam papers/links:

The best plan seems to be doing an example exam or two then checking which areas you need to revise on most. After that revision then attempt another example exam and see where your understanding is at and what areas you may still need to go over again.

Also useful is the ISTQB Glossary of Testing Terms, available in PDF from http://www.istqb.org/downloads/viewcategory/20.html

Other useful links

http://www.softwaretestingstuff.com/

 

 

 

By |May 25th, 2012|Development, ISEB, Software Testing|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is a brief chapter, entitled ‘The Examination’.

It covers the exam structure, the types of question, some example questions in different K1/K2/K3/K4 categories, exam techniques and revision techniques.

In brief, the exam is 1 hour long and contains 40 questions. The pass rate is 26 correct answers, so thats 65%.

The topics covered are:

  • The examination
  • Revision techniques

 

By |May 25th, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 6

Have now worked through Chapter 6 of the book, entitled ‘Tool Support for Testing’. This is another very comprehensive chapter, which took around 9 hours of studying, over a few days.

It covers the main topic of testing tools, describing in-depth the range of different types of tools, what they’re used for and the benefits and potential disadvanatages of using them. It covers the actual description/theory of each tool, rather than specific tools/software that may be in use. It finally concludes with a process to introduce testing tools into an organistion.

The topics covered are:

  • What is a test tool?
  • Test tools
  • Introducing a tool into an organisation

In order to understand just how many test tools there are, I’ve created two lists from the information in this Chapter, to help my learning/revision. The first list below covers all the test tools discussed in the Chapter, arranged by their ‘ISTQB Syllabus Classification. The list after that is these tools but arranged by ‘Most Likely Users’.

List of Tools by ISTQB Syllabus Classification

Classification: Management of Testing and Testing:

  • Test Management Tools
  • Incident Management Tools
  • Requirements Management Tools
  • Configuration Management Tools

Classification: Static Testing: 

  • Review Tools
  • Static Analysis Tools
  • Modelling Tools

Classification: Test Specification:

  • Test Design Tools/Script Generators
  • Test Oracles
  • Test (input) Data Preparation Tools

Classification: Test Execution and Logging:

  • Test Execution/Test Running Tools
  • Test Harness/Unit Test Framework Tools
  • Test Comparators
  • Coverage Measurement Tools
  • Security Tools

Classification: Performance and Monitoring:

  • Dynamic Analysis Tools
  • Performance Testing/Load Testing Tools
  • Performance Testing/Stress Testing Tools
  • Monitoring Tools

Classification: Data Quality 

  • Data Quality Assessment Tools

Classification: Usability 

  • Usability Tools

Classification: Other Tools 

  • Spreadsheets, SQL, Project Planning Tools, Resource Planning Tools, Debugging Tools

List of Tools arranged by ‘Most Likely Users’ 

Users: Business Analyst 

  • Requirements Management Tools

Users: Testers

  • Test Management Tools
  • Incident Management Tools
  • Test Design Tools/Script Generators
  • Test Oracles
  • Test Execution/Test Running Tools

Users: Developers 

  • Static Analysis Tools
  • Modelling Tools
  • Test Harnesses/Unit Test Framework Tools
  • Coverage Management Tools
  • Dynamic Analysis Tools
  • Debugging Tools

Users: Testers and Developers 

  • Test Comparators

Users: Various 

  • Incident Management Tools
  • Requirements Management Tools
  • Configuration Management Tools
  • Review Tool
  • Test (input) Data Preparation Tools
  • Monitoring Tools
  • Data Quality Assessment Tools
  • Spreadsheets, SQL, Project Planning Tools, Resource Planning Tools

Users: Specialists 

  • Security Tools
  • Performance Testing Tools
  • Usability Tools

 

By |May 25th, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 5

Have now worked through Chapter 5 of the book, entitled ‘Test Management’. This is another very comprehensive chapter, which took around 7 1/2 hours of study, over a few days.

It covers many different topics including testing and risk, test planning, test control, roles and tasks, test management, test design/specification, test metrics and test reporting plus many more related topics.

The topics covered are:

  • Risk and testing
  • Test organisation
  • Test approaches/test strategies
  • Test planning and estimation
  • Test progress monitoring and control
  • Incident management
  • Configuration management
By |May 23rd, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 4

Have now worked through Chapter 4 of the book, entitled ‘Test Design Techniques’. This is a very comprehensive chapter and took about 9 hours of study to get through, over a few days.

It begins with coverage of key terms, then covers the basic process of creating a suite of tests, then explores three categories of testing: specification-based testing, structure-based testing and experience-based testing. If finishes off with a section on the selection of test techniques.

The topics covered are:

  • The test development process
  • The idea of test coverage
  • Categories of test case design techniques
  • Specification-based (black-box) techniques
  • Structure-based (white-box) techniques
  • Experience-based techniques
  • Choosing test techniques

 

By |May 22nd, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 3

Have now worked through Chapter 3 of the book, entitled ‘Static Testing’. This took about 3 hours to work through. This chapter deals with the static techniques area of software testing – where software is tested without executing it. This can lead to finding errors and defects before code is written/executed and can lead to making corrections earlier in the life cycle and thus easier and cheaper to fix.
Two static testing techniques are covered – the first of these is the Review and the second is Static Analysis.

The topics covered are:

  • Background to static techniques
  • Reviews and the test process
  • Static analysis by tools
By |May 15th, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 2

Have now worked through Chapter 2 of this book, entitled ‘Life Cycles’. This looks at software testing as part of the overall software development process. It covers different software development models – waterfall model, V-model and iterative/incremental models. Then it introduces the test levels required – Unit Testing, Integration Testing, System Testing and Acceptance Testing. The different test types are then covered – including Functional Testing, Non-functional Testing and Structural Testing. This took about 3 1/2 hours to work through.

The topics covered are:

  • Software development models
  • Test levels
  • Test types
  • Maintenance testing
By |May 15th, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing|0 Comments
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