Software Engineering Questions and Answers Set 1

Software Engineering 

Questions 1 to 10

Set1 Set2 Set3 Set4 Set5 Set6 Set7 Set8

1. Identify, from among the following, the correct statement. (a)   One of the main challenges Software Engineering facing today is the requirement of most software systems to work with a multitude of homogenous systems (b)   ‘Legacy systems’ are custom developed software systems for the legal domain (c)   Software does not wear-out in the traditional sense of the term, but software does tend to deteriorate as it evolves (d)   Since software is essentially ‘intangible’ it is relatively easy to manage software projects (e)   With the advent of component based software assembly, we find that only less than 20% of today’s software is still custom built. 2. Software Engineering: (a)   Is a set of rules about developing software products (b)   Has been around as a discipline since the early 50’s (c)   Started as a response to the so-called ‘Software Crisis’ of the late 90’s (d)   Is an engineering discipline concerned with all the aspects of software production (e)   Is now a mature discipline on par with other established engineering fields. 3. Read the following paragraph and identify the correct statement. “Imagine that you were recently hired as a software engineer to a company that specializes in aircraft navigation control software. While orientating yourselves to the company’s work practices, you observe that they in fact do not conduct a few tests that they should in order to comply with the relevant safety standard. When you inquire about this from the project manager, he dismisses it saying that those tests are really unnecessary (and takes an unreasonably long time to conduct, as well as being superfluous) and that they have managed with the other tests for so long, without any problems.” (a)   You should immediately resign from the company and file a complaint with the relevant standard institution (b)   You should do nothing and let the matter slide (c)   Although you are new to the company, and you hardly know anything about the internal processes and politics, you should insist on the company changing its work practices immediately; failing which you threaten to report the matter (d)   Since you are new to the company, and you are unfamiliar with the internal processes and politics, you should first find-out more about the issue and its background (e)   None of the above statements are correct. 4. With regard to Evolutionary development, identify the correct statement. (a)   Evolutionary development usually comes in two flavors; exploratory development, and throw-away prototyping (b)   Very large projects are natural candidates for an evolutionary development based approach (c)   Exploratory development is used in situations where most of the requirements are well understood in advance (d)   One of the strong points of evolutionary development is that it facilitates easy project management, through the high volume of documentation it generates (e)   Often the construction of a throw-away prototype is not followed by a reimplementation of the system using a more structured approach. 5. What is the fundamental reason that software cannot be considered to be engineered? (a)   It is designed by humans and therefore flawed (b)   Software engineering (as opposed to other forms of engineering, such as Civil) is an art - not a science (c)   The discipline is relatively new, say in comparison to bridge building that is an activity that has millennia of practice (d)   None of these are true. Software Engineering is a truly rigorous discipline (e)   The complexity of systems and their interaction continues faster than we can understand it. 6. The software life cycle can be said to consist of a series of phases. The classical model is referred to as the waterfall model. Which phase may be defined as "The concept is explored and refined, and the client's requirements are elicited?" (a)  Requirements                                   (b)  Specification                                    (c)  Design (d)  Implementation                                 (e)  Integration. 7. The individual or organisation who wants a product to be developed is known as the: (a)  Developer           (b)  User                  (c)  Contractor          (d)  Initiator              (e)  Client. 8. Which of the following items should not be included in the software project management plan? (a)   The techniques and case tools to be used (b)   Detailed schedules, budgets and resource allocations (c)   The life cycle model to be used (d)   The organisational structure of the development organisation, project responsibilities, managerial objectives and priorities (e)   None of the above. 9. The final form of testing COTS software is _________ testing. (a)  Unit                   (b)  Integration          (c)  Alpha                (d)  Module              (e)  Beta. 10. In the maintenance phase the product must be tested against previous test cases. This is known as __________ testing. (a)  Unit                   (b)  Integration          (c)  Regression        (d)  Module              (e)  Beta.

Answers

1.	Answer : © Reason:  Remaining all are contradictory.
2.	Answer : (d) Reason:  Software crisis of the late 60’s .
3.	Answer : (d) Reason:  D is the appropriate choice.
4.	Answer : (a) Reason:  Evolutionary development usually comes in two flavors; exploratory development, and throw-away prototyping is the correct statement with respect to Evolutionary development.
5.	Answer : (e) Reason:  The fundamental reason that software can not be considered to be engineered is the complexity of systems and their interaction continues faster than we can understand it.
6.	Answer : (a) Reason:  In the requirements phase the concept is explored and refined and the clients requirements are elicited.
7.	Answer : (e) Reason:  The individual or organisation who wants a product to be developed is known as the client.
8.	Answer : (e) Reason:  The software project management plan should include: the life cycle model to be used, the organisational structure of the development organisation, project responsibilities, managerial objectives and priorities, the life cycle model to be used, detailed schedules, budgets and resource allocations.
9.	Answer : (e) Reason:  Beta testing occurs when a commercial form of the software is released to selected clients.
10.	Answer : © Reason:  Regression testing occurs when the product is tested against previous test cases. This most frequently occurs in the maintenance phase.

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Software Engineering Questions and Answers Set 2

Software Engineering 

Questions 11 to 20

Set1 Set2 Set3 Set4 Set5 Set6 Set7 Set8

11. Which property of the rapid prototype is not important? (a)   The speed with which it can be developed (b)   The speed with which it can be modified (c)   Its ability to determine the client's real needs (d)   The insights that the design team can gain from it, even if they are of the 'how not to do it' variety (e)   Its internal structure. 12. An example of the risk involved in software development is (a)   Key personnel may resign before the product is complete (b)   The manufacturer of critical components (e.g. the hardware associated with a real-time system) may go bankrupt (c)   Technology changes may render the product obsolete (d)   Competitors may market a fully functional lower-cost equivalent package (e)   All of these are risks involved in software development. 13. A simple way of looking at the spiral software life-cycle model is as a waterfall model with each phase proceeded by (a)  Build-and-fix                                      (b)  Freezing             (c)  Synchronization (d)  Testing                                             (e)  Risk analysis. 14. The degree of interaction between two modules is known as (a)  Cohesion            (b)  Strength             (c)  Inheritance         (d)  Coupling             (e)  Instantiation. 15. The relationship between a derived class (or subclass) and base class is referred to as (a)  Association                                       (b)  Inheritance          (c)  Polymorphism    (d)  Instantiation                                      (e)  Aggregation. 16. Myers (1978) identifies seven levels of cohesion. Which level of cohesion may be defined as followed; "the output from one element in the component serves as input for some other element"? (a)  Communicational cohesion                 (b)  Functional cohesion                          (c)  Communicational cohesion                 (d)  Temporal cohesion                     (e)  None of these. 17. A design is said to be a good design if the components are (a)   Strongly coupled (b)   Weakly cohesive (c)   Strongly coupled and Weakly cohesive (d)   Strongly coupled and strongly cohesive (e)   Strongly cohesive and weakly coupled. 18. If a control switch is passed as an argument this is an example of _______ coupling. (a)  Content              (b)  Common             (c)  Control               (d)  Stamp                (e)  Data. 19. Which of the following is a type of abstraction? (a)  Data                   (b)  Procedural          (c)  Iteration             (d)  All of the above    (e)  None of the above. 20. In the classical chief programmer team approach, the team member responsible for maintaining the detailed design and coding is (a)   The chief programmer (b)   The programming secretary (c)   A specialized function that exists outside 'the team' (d)   The individual coder (i.e. programmer) (e)   The back-up programmer.

Answers

11.	Answer : (c) Reason:  The sole use of the rapid prototype is to determine what the client's real needs are as rapidly as possible. The rapid prototype is then effectively discarded so its internal structure is not relevant.
12.	Answer : (e) Reason:  There are many risks involved in software development.
13.	Answer : (e) Reason:  A simple way of looking at the spiral software life-cycle model is as a waterfall model with each phase proceeded by risk analysis.
14.	Answer : (d) Reason:  The degree of interaction between two modules is known as coupling.
15.	Answer : (b) Reason:  A derived class inherits all the attributes of a base class.
16.	Answer : (a) Reason:  In communicational cohesion the output from one element in the component serves as input for some other element.
17.	Answer : (e) Reason:  You should aim to maximize the interaction within a module and minimize the interaction between modules.
18.	Answer : (c) Reason:  Two modules are control coupled if one passes an element of control to another.
19.	Answer : (d) Reason:  The three types of abstraction (data, procedural and iteration) are all instances of the more general concept of information hiding.
20.	Answer : (d) Reason:  In the classical chief programmer team approach, the team member responsible for maintaining the detailed design and coding is the individual coder (i.e. programmer).

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Software Engineering Questions and Answers Set 3

Software Engineering 

Questions 21 to 30

Set1 Set2 Set3 Set4 Set5 Set6 Set7 Set8

21. Internal costs include (a)   Developers salaries (b)   Managers and support personnel salaries (c)   The cost of overheads such as utilities, rent and senior managers (d)   Materials (such as manuals) and services such as travel (e)   All of the above. 22. Problems with using Lines of Code to measure the size of a product include(s) (a)   The creation of source code is only part of the development effort (b)   The Lines of Code (LOC) will differ between languages and cannot be measured for some languages (c)   Should comments, data definitions etc (i.e. non-executable LOC) be included as well? (d)   The final size (kLOC) can only be determined once the product is delivered (e)   All of the above. 23. Software Science bases its estimation of the size of a product on (a)   Files (Fi), Flows (Fl) and Processes (Pr) (b)   Lines of Code (kLOC) (c)   Function Points (FP) (d)   operands and operators (e)   Feature Points (FeP). 24. In Intermediate COCOMO the mode that represents complex products is referred to as (a)  Embedded                                        (b)  Semidetached                                   (c)  Organic (d)  Multiplicative                                     (e)  Monolithic. 25. Work that continues throughout the project and does not relate to any specific phase of software development is termed a(n) (a)  Milestone            (b)  Project function                                 (c)  Activity              (d)  Task                   (e)  Baseline. 26. The advantage of following the IEEE Standard for drawing up a Software Project Management Plan (SPMP) - see IEEE Standard 1059.1 1987 - is (a)   It is drawn up by representatives from major software development organisations (b)   It is designed for all types of software products (c)   It is a framework that can be used irrespective of process model or specific techniques (d)   It can be tailored for each organisation for a particular application area, development team or technique. (e)   All of the above. 27. The best way to test the Software Project Management Plan (SPMP) is by (a)  Prototyping         (b)  Inspection           (c)  Simulation         (d)  Compilation         (e)  Debugging. 28. Algorithmic cost estimation in different organisations may be different for the same application development, because (a)   Different organisations consider complexity factors differently (b)   Different organisations may use different programming languages (c)   Developers' skills may vary (d)   Techniques for the measurement of productivity may vary (e)   All of the above may be true. 29. The aim of software engineering is to produce software that is (a)   Fault-free (b)   Delivered on time (c)   Delivered within budget (d)   Satisfies users' needs (e)   All of these are the aims of software engineering. 30. Object-oriented concepts are not new. The first OO language was considered to be (a)  ALGOL-68                                         (b)  FORTRAN 77      (c)  C                      (d)  MODULA                                          (e)  SIMULA 67.

Answers

21.	Answer : (a) Reason:  Internal costs comprise all the costs to the developers.
22.	Answer : (e) Reason:  There are many problems with using Lines of Code to measure the size of a product.
23.	Answer : (d) Reason:  Software Science bases its estimation of the size of a product on the number of operands and operators.
24.	Answer : (a) Reason:  In Intermediate COCOMO there are three modes: organic, semidetached and imbedded.
25.	Answer : (b) Reason:  Work that continues throughout the project and does not relate to any specific phase of software development is termed a project function.
26.	Answer : (e) Reason:  There are many advantages of using a standard.
27.	Answer : (b) Reason:  The best way to test the Software Project Management Plan (SPMP) is by a plan inspection by the SQA team. In order to further reduce risk the duration and cost estimates should further be independently computed by people other than the original project team.
28.	Answer : (e) Reason:  Cost estimation incorporates a number of factors.
29.	Answer : (e) Reason:  The aim of software engineering is to produce software that is fault-free, delivered on time, delivered within budget, and satisfies users' needs.
30.	Answer : (e) Reason:  The first OO language was considered to be SIMULA 67.

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