QA Interview Questions for Freshers (1970)

Software testing is the process of evaluating a system to find defects, verify it meets requirements, and validate it solves the user's problem. Combines verification (building the product right) and validation (building the right product).

QA (Quality Assurance) is process-oriented and preventive — audits, reviews, standards. QC (Quality Control) is product-oriented and corrective — inspection and testing to find defects. QA improves the process; QC verifies the product.

Verification — are we building the product right? Static, done via reviews and walkthroughs. Validation — are we building the right product? Dynamic, done via test execution and UAT.

(1) Testing shows defects, not absence. (2) Exhaustive testing is impossible. (3) Early testing saves cost. (4) Defects cluster. (5) Pesticide paradox — same tests stop finding bugs. (6) Testing is context-dependent. (7) Absence-of-errors fallacy.

Severity = business impact. Priority = urgency to fix. A misspelled homepage headline is low severity but high priority; a crash on a rarely used admin screen is high severity but low priority.

New → Assigned → Open → In Progress → Fixed → Retest → Verified → Closed. Alternate states: Rejected, Deferred, Duplicate, Not-Reproducible, Reopened. Every transition is logged in Jira for audit.

Smoke is wide + shallow — 'does the build even start?' Run on every build. Sanity is narrow + deep — verify a specific fix or small change works. Smoke is broader; sanity is deeper.

Regression re-runs a curated suite after every change to confirm existing features still work. Typically automated, gated in CI, and prioritised by risk — recent changes, high-traffic flows, past defect-heavy modules.

Unique ID, clear title, precondition, atomic steps, single expected result, traceability to a requirement, priority, no dependency on other tests. Another tester should reproduce it exactly from your steps alone.

BVA tests at the edges of input ranges — min, min-1, min+1, max, max-1, max+1. For a text field 5–15 chars: test 4, 5, 6, 14, 15, 16 characters. Bugs cluster at boundaries.

EP divides inputs into partitions where behaviour should be identical, then tests one value per partition. For age 18–60: one from <18, one from 18–60, one from >60 — three tests instead of dozens.

Lists every combination of conditions and expected actions. For loan approval (age, income, credit score), each row becomes a test case. Guarantees complete logical coverage.

Positive — valid inputs, happy path. Negative — invalid inputs (letters in a number field, expired token, malformed JSON). System must handle both without crashing or exposing data.

Title, environment (browser/OS/build/device), preconditions, exact repro steps, actual vs expected result, severity, priority, screenshots/video, console + network logs, reproducibility %, and a link to the failing test case.

SDLC covers building the product end-to-end (requirements → design → dev → test → deploy → maintain). STLC covers only QA activities inside SDLC: requirement analysis → test planning → test design → environment setup → execution → closure.

(1) Requirement analysis. (2) Test planning. (3) Test case design. (4) Test environment setup. (5) Test execution. (6) Test closure. Entry + exit criteria gate each phase.

Testing embedded in every sprint alongside development, not as a downstream gate. QA joins refinement, adds acceptance criteria, automates as features land, and gives daily quality signal instead of a big-bang test phase.

Scrum is an Agile framework: 2–4 week sprints, daily standups, sprint planning, review, retrospective. QA participates in all ceremonies, owns Definition-of-Done (automated tests + no P1/P2 open), and demos user-visible quality at review.

A team-owned checklist a story must satisfy before being called 'done' — e.g., code merged + peer-reviewed + unit tests passing + acceptance criteria automated + P1/P2 defects closed + deployed to staging + PO signed off.

User story: 'As a <role>, I want <feature>, so that <benefit>'. Acceptance criteria are testable conditions the story must meet. QA turns each criterion into a test case before development starts.

Selenium is an open-source browser-automation library — WebDriver drives Chrome/Firefox/Edge/Safari via native driver binaries. Bindings in Java, Python, C#, JS. Industry-standard for UI automation. See our Selenium Q&A hub.

Playwright (Microsoft) is a modern browser-automation library with auto-waits, first-class trace viewer, parallel execution, network stubbing, and cross-browser out-of-the-box. See Playwright Q&A.

POM encapsulates a page's locators and actions in a class. Tests call loginPage.loginAs(user) instead of raw driver.findElement. Benefits: single point of change on UI updates, reusable actions, cleaner tests.

API testing validates requests/responses at the service layer — status codes, headers, payload schema, business rules, auth. Freshers should know Postman + basic REST (GET/POST/PUT/DELETE, 2xx/4xx/5xx codes).

200 OK, 201 Created, 204 No Content, 301 Redirect, 400 Bad Request, 401 Unauthorized, 403 Forbidden, 404 Not Found, 500 Server Error.

SELECT with WHERE, ORDER BY, LIMIT; INNER + LEFT JOIN; GROUP BY + COUNT/SUM/AVG; simple sub-queries; INSERT + UPDATE + DELETE (understanding, not always writing). See SQL Q&A for testers.

Answer with (1) genuine interest — 'I like breaking systems to understand them', (2) 1 project you tested (college app, hackathon, tutorial), (3) alignment — 'QA is the last line before users see the product; that responsibility drew me in.' Avoid 'I couldn't get a dev role.'

Strengths: analytical thinking + attention to detail + written communication — back each with a 1-line example. Weaknesses: pick something coachable ('I over-document; I'm learning to prioritise'), never a fake strength like 'I'm too perfectionist'.

Show ambition without overreach: 'Master automation + framework design in 2 years, transition to SDET in 3, lead a QA squad or move to a niche like performance/security by year 5.' Ties personal growth to the company's needs.

3 sentences: (1) match — one skill from the JD you already have, (2) proof — a project or number, (3) attitude — willingness to learn stack X. Example: 'I know Selenium + Postman, built a POM framework on my GitHub, and I can pick up your API-first stack in 4 weeks.'

Always yes. Ask: 'What does a great QA look like on your team after 6 months?' or 'How does QA participate in sprint planning here?' Signals you think about impact, not just the job.

60-second answer: (1) degree + graduation year, (2) 1 project or internship with a QA angle, (3) skills learned (Selenium/Postman/SQL), (4) 1 line on why QA, (5) 1 line on why this company. Rehearse aloud until it's natural — not memorised.