Today I am sharing a video I did on the ISEB Testing Foundation Syllabus, and to make it even easier to digest, I have a transcription of the video below. If you are looking for more specific questions, such as how much does the ISTQB foundation exam cost or how many questions are in the ISTQB foundation exam, then we have them covered throughout this site. Anyway, back to the video:
Transcription for: What is in the ISEB Testing Foundation Syllabus video
Hey, welcome back guys, this is Wayne Vassell here, again for Talented Tester, and today I'm going to be tackling one of the questions that have been asked a few times and is, "What exactly is in the ISEB Testing Foundation Syllabus?" For those of you that watch in ISEB ISTQB very much use interchangeably, ISTQB is really the standard that we're following now, but this is the specific questing that has been asked.
Overview of the Syllabus
The syllabus can be found online. Typically, there is five major headings for the syllabus, which are broken down into many different subsections.
01. Fundamentals of Testing
The first section we've got is the fundamentals of testing, and that is effectively why is testing necessary, which is broken down to software systems, context, causes of defects, for example what are the root causes of defects, how the defects happen, a real understanding of defects.
The role of testing in software development, and that's maintenance and operations. Testing and quality, understanding exactly what quality is and understanding how much testing is enough.
Obviously if you studied and prepared for these for this exam, you'll know what some of these headings mean and then you should have an idea of how you're actually going to prepare for the exam.
Other areas as well, what is testing, the seven testing principles, fundamental test process, and that is test planing and control, test analysis and design, implementation and execution, evaluating the exit criteria.
Basically with the exit criteria is understand how do you know when to actually exit from testing. Test closure activities, such as test closure reports et cetera. The phycology of testing and finally code ethics. That is the main bulk of the first top level coverage of fundamentals of testing.
02. Testing Throughout the Software Life Cycle
The next section is testing throughout the software life cycle, and that encompasses software development models.
For example the V model, iterative incremental development models, testing with a life cycle model. This doesn't really cover such things as agile. Agile is pretty much a new extension, which is almost treated as a separate certification, so that's not covered here. It also goes into test levels, that's component testing, integration testing, system testing and acceptance testing.
Different test types, testing of functions, a functional testing, testing of nonfunctional software, also knows as nonfunctional testing. Structural testing, testing related to changes, for example retesting and regression testing. Other things that covered in this or the last one to be covered in this is maintenance testing.
Hopefully there should a few key things that stick out for you. In my mind the one that's sticks out most is regression testing and retesting. Obviously that's a pretty critical part of testing and regression is pretty much something that you're gonna need throughout your whole testing career and is something good to master.
03. Static Techniques
The next headline topic is static techniques, and this includes the overall static techniques and the test process, the review process, activities of formal review, roles and responsibilities, types of reviews, success factors for reviews and then finally, static analysis by tools.
04. Test Design Techniques
The next major heading that we've got is test design techniques, and this basically covers the test development process, categories of test design techniques, specification based or black box techniques, and that's including stuff like equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis, also known as BV, decision table testing, state transition testing and used case testing.
The next subsection within this area is a structured base or white box techniques, and that's statement testing coverage, decision testing and coverage and other structured based techniques. Experienced based techniques and choosing test techniques.
05. Test Management
And then the final major area is test management, and this includes test organization, test organization independence, task of test leader. The test studies are mainly to do with being a test lead, so a lot of these to do with actually managing a project or leading a project. The next subsection is to do with test planing and estimation. That's planing, planing the activities, the entry criteria, defining the exit criteria, which was touched on early on in one of the other sections. Test estimation, knowing ... Or not necessarily know, but estimating how long you plan for each test phase, test strategy and test approach, understanding how to layout the strategy, and this would also include the test strategy document. Other subsections are test progress, monitoring and control, which encompasses test reporting, test control. The next subheading, configuration management and then we have also risk in testing, that's project risk and product risks. The final subsection within this area is incident management.
06. Tool Support for Testing
And sorry, the final one, final subheading area is tool support for testing. These are different types of test tools. It goes into the meaning of purposes of the tool, test tool classification, tool support for management, tool support for static testing, tool support for test specification, tool support test execution and [log in 00:06:32], like defect management tools. Tool support for performance and monitoring, like performance testing and tool support for specific testing needs. It then goes into effective use of tools, the potential benefits and risks, and then it talks about special considerations for some of the tools and then it introducing tools for organization.
Final Words
These are the key areas that are covered within the syllabus. Obviously within each of these headline topics are very much detailed low level sub areas, which I've basically covered at a high level during this video. The key thing really is making sure that you've prepared for each of these sections, so that when you have your multiple choice questions you're prepared to ace the exam, hopefully on your first attempt.
Now, one of the key ways to make sure that you're fully prepared for the exam and make sure that you have the best chance of success is getting a free exam questions and sample test papers that you can use to help you to succeed.
I've got for you at my website TalentedTester.com/Sample is a way for you can download an absolutely free exam and question sample that you can actually use to help you prepare for your exam to give you the best possible choice at chance of succeeding. Thank you very much for watching this video today and I look forward to you in the next video. Thank you very much.