The principle of early testing involves engaging with work products as soon as they are available to find defects early. The requirement, while containing numbers, is ambiguous because it doesn’t explicitly state the handling of the boundary values 1 and 100 (e.g., are they valid?). The most effective action is to clarify the ambiguity with the author (the business analyst) to prevent a defect in the specification from carrying forward. Writing test cases based on an assumption (option B) or deeming it clear (option C) doesn’t address the root ambiguity. Option D involves incorrectly rewriting the requirement, which is the business analyst’s responsibility, not the tester’s.

The test case describes a sequence of user actions (adding an item, checking out, entering details, applying a code, paying) to achieve a specific user goal (completing a purchase). This narrative of an actor interacting with a system to achieve a goal is the classic definition of a use case. While it involves sequences (like state transition), it is not testing the system’s reaction to various events from different states. It is not focused on input boundaries or combinations of business rules in a tabular form.

A fundamental test principle is that testing activities should be planned and controlled. This includes defining exit criteria (the conditions that must be met to conclude testing) for each test level (e.g., component integration test) and/or test cycle (e.g., the end of an iteration). Evaluating progress against these criteria at the end of each cycle provides objective data for deciding whether to stop testing, continue, or deploy, thus enabling proper test control throughout the project, regardless of the life cycle model.

State transition testing focuses on testing the behavior of a system in different states and the transitions between them triggered by events. Option A correctly identifies states ($0.00, $0.25, $0.75, $1.00), events (inserting specific coins), and the resulting transitions and outputs (display update, dispense, reject). It covers valid transitions to a final state. Option C tests combinations of inputs but not the state behavior. Option B tests invalid inputs, and Option D tests boundary values, both useful but for different techniques, not state transition.

The primary goal of a bug report is to enable the developer to see the failure and understand its cause. A report that lacks clear, unambiguous steps to reproduce the issue is essentially useless, as the developer cannot find the defect in the code. While severity, priority, and environment (options A and C) are important, they are secondary to reproducibility. Option D is not the tester’s primary responsibility; the tester’s job is to report the ‘what,’ not prescribe the ‘how’ of the fix.

In the V-Model, there is a direct relationship between development and test activities. System testing is designed to verify that the system meets its specified requirements. Therefore, the test basis for system testing is the system requirements specification. The test conditions (what will be tested) should be identified and detailed as the requirements themselves are being analyzed and specified, ensuring traceability and enabling early test design.

While spreadsheets can store test case details (A), allow concurrent access with care (C), and perform calculations (D), these features are manual and prone to error. A key advantage of a dedicated test management tool is maintaining dynamic, reliable traceability links. This allows teams to easily see which requirements are covered by which tests, which tests have failed and produced which defects, and assess coverage gaps—functionality that is cumbersome and fragile to maintain in a spreadsheet.

The defect is directly related to the system’s failure to perform a specified function (calculating an average) correctly under a specific, valid input condition (zero deals). The core issue is in the application’s business logic for handling a boundary case. While it causes an error (which could be seen as poor usability or an exposed error), the root cause is a flaw in the functional implementation, not primarily in performance, user interface design, or security controls.

MC/DC requires that every condition in a decision independently affects the decision’s outcome. Here, the decision is ‘Discount Applicable (Y/N)’, based on two conditions: Status and Order Value. To show each condition’s independent effect, you need a pair of test cases for each condition where only that condition changes, but the decision outcome changes. For 2 conditions, the minimum number of test cases is 3. Example: 1) (Gold, >$500) -> Y; 2) (Regular, >$500) -> N (Status changed outcome); 3) (Regular, <=$500) -> N (Order Value changed, but outcome stayed same—need another pair). A suitable set of 3 is: (Gold, >$500)=Y, (Silver, >$500)=N, (Gold, <=$500)=N. This shows Status and Order Value each independently affecting the outcome.

The principle of early testing involves engaging with work products as soon as they are available to find defects early. The requirement, while containing numbers, is ambiguous because it doesn’t explicitly state the handling of the boundary values 1 and 100 (e.g., are they valid?). The most effective action is to clarify the ambiguity with the author (the business analyst) to prevent a defect in the specification from carrying forward. Writing test cases based on an assumption (option B) or deeming it clear (option C) doesn’t address the root ambiguity. Option D involves incorrectly rewriting the requirement, which is the business analyst’s responsibility, not the tester’s.0