Cognizant Software Testing Interview Questions & Answers

Valid transfer, insufficient balance, daily limit, wrong beneficiary, OTP failure, network drop mid-transaction, duplicate click and statement update.

Talk to developers and users, explore the product, review similar systems, create notes and mind maps, confirm assumptions and write test cases as you learn.

Clear, concise, independent, repeatable, traceable to a requirement, with precise expected results and tested data.

Status code, response body and schema, headers, response time, error messages for invalid input, authentication (401/403) and that data is saved in the database.

List conditions and actions in a table and cover every combination of conditions (rules) — ideal for business rules like loan approval: salary > X AND credit score > Y → approve.

Positive cases use valid inputs to confirm expected behaviour; negative cases use invalid inputs to confirm the system handles errors gracefully.

Designing tests from user flows described in use cases to verify complete real-world interactions.

Verifying the application works across different hardware, software and settings combinations.

Log and track bugs, link them to stories, build dashboards and filters with JQL, manage sprints and generate reports.

Prioritising tests by the likelihood and impact of failure, so critical areas get the most coverage when time is limited.

Checking that people with disabilities can use the product, using screen readers, keyboard navigation, colour contrast and WCAG guidelines.

JIRA Query Language, used to search issues, for example project = ABC AND status = Open AND priority = High.

The hardware, software, data and configuration where testing happens, set up to mirror production as closely as practical.

Add, remove, update quantity, price and tax calculation, coupon codes, stock limits, cart persistence after login and checkout navigation.

Smoke testing checks that the critical features of a new build work (broad and shallow). Sanity testing checks that a specific fix or area works after a change (narrow and deep).

Check access with valid, expired and missing tokens, role-based permissions, error codes and that sensitive data is never exposed.

Severity = impact on the system. Priority = urgency to fix. Logo misspelt on the homepage → low severity, high priority. Crash in a rarely used report → high severity, low priority.

An API style using HTTP methods on resources identified by URLs, usually exchanging JSON and staying stateless.

Testing that is continuous and collaborative within each sprint, with testers working alongside developers and product owners from the start.

A regular review where QA, development and product assess new bugs and decide severity, priority, owner and target release.

Re-testing existing features after a change. Automate stable, repetitive, high-value flows that run every release.

State the problem, location and condition briefly, for example 'Checkout button disabled after applying a coupon on the cart page'.

A document defining scope, approach, resources, schedule, entry and exit criteria, risks and deliverables of testing.

Keep tests modular, prioritise by risk, use exploratory testing, automate stable parts and keep close contact with product owners.

Moves to the chosen floor, doors open and close, door sensor stops closing on obstruction, overload alarm, emergency button, behaviour in a power cut, max capacity and the floor display.

New → Assigned → Open → Fixed → Retest → Verified → Closed, with Reopened, Rejected, Deferred and Duplicate as side paths.

A suite is a collection of related test cases; a run is one execution of a set of tests against a build.

Statuses like To Do, In Progress, In Review, Ready for QA, Done and Reopened, with transitions that depend on the team's configuration.

Black box tests behaviour without code knowledge; white box tests internal logic and paths; grey box uses partial knowledge of the internals.

A shared checklist for when a story is complete, usually including code review, tests passing, no open critical bugs and documentation updated.

Re-check the requirement, reproduce with clear steps and evidence (screenshots, logs), discuss with the BA/PO and record the final decision.

Unit, integration, system and acceptance testing, moving from individual components to the complete product in front of users.

They let testers verify totals and counts per category, such as the number of orders per customer, and compare them with the UI or reports.

GET retrieves data and has parameters in the URL; POST sends data in the body to create or process something.

Testing how a system moves between states based on events, for example an order going from placed to paid to shipped to delivered.

Assess impact and risk, discuss with product and dev, decide to fix, defer with a workaround or delay release, and document the decision.

A human error causes a defect in the code, and when that defect is executed it produces a failure visible to users.

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

Verify inserted, updated and deleted rows match UI actions, check constraints, duplicates, NULLs and totals with COUNT and SUM queries.

The team selects stories for the sprint. QA helps estimate testing effort, clarifies acceptance criteria and flags dependencies and risks.

Shift left with early reviews, improve test design, automate regression, use better test data, add monitoring and learn from escaped defects.

Testing shows presence of defects, exhaustive testing is impossible, test early, defects cluster, the pesticide paradox, testing is context-dependent and absence-of-errors is a fallacy.

For a field accepting 1–100: valid class 1–100 (test 50), invalid below 1 (test −5), invalid above 100 (test 150). One value represents each class.

Scope (in and out), objectives, approach, environments, schedule, roles, entry/exit criteria, risks and mitigation, deliverables and tools.

INNER returns matching rows, LEFT keeps all left rows, RIGHT keeps all right rows and FULL keeps all rows from both tables.

Valid card and PIN, wrong PIN, three failed attempts, amount above balance, amount above daily limit, invalid denomination, machine out of cash, network failure and receipt printing.

DELETE removes selected rows and can be rolled back; TRUNCATE quickly removes all rows and resets the table.

A technique that tests all pairs of input values instead of every combination, greatly reducing test cases while catching most defects.

Checking the application works across browsers, devices, operating systems, screen sizes and network conditions.

Test 17, 18, 19, 59, 60 and 61.

The observation that a small number of modules contain most defects, so testing should focus on those areas.

A bug is behaviour that deviates from agreed requirements; an enhancement is a new or improved capability beyond the current requirements.

Risk-based testing: cover critical user flows, recent changes and high-defect areas first. Clearly communicate the untested risks and get stakeholder sign-off.

Peer review for clarity, coverage of requirements, correct expected results, test data and traceability, then update and baseline them.

Code is built and tested automatically on each change; tests are quality gates that stop faulty builds from moving forward.

Mandatory fields, email format, password rules, duplicate email, terms checkbox, captcha, confirmation email and field length limits.

Reproduce and assess impact, inform stakeholders, help developers fix and verify in staging, run regression and check monitoring after the hotfix, then do a post-mortem.

Allowed and disallowed formats, size limits, empty file, duplicate names, special-character names, cancel upload, slow network and multiple files.