Question 720
A quality engineering exercise presents this condition: A service team automates its Gherkin scenarios with step definitions that always return success regardless of the application's actual state. Which repeatable testing practice most directly reduces recurrence of this problem?
Explanation
Correct Answer
This safeguard specifically targets the contributing cause: Run periodic mutation or intentional-failure checks against ATDD step definitions. It addresses the principle (Executable acceptance specifications require real observable checks, not green steps with no oracle.) and can be assessed by: A seeded wrong price causes the appropriate acceptance scenario to fail before correction.
Incorrect Answers
This preventive step mitigates a different project risk (syllabus section 4.5): A transport app team's Gherkin check asserts only that the booking page loads, though the story requires a fare quote to match luggage choices. The targeted safeguard for the current case is: Run periodic mutation or intentional-failure checks against ATDD step definitions.
This preventive step mitigates a different project risk (syllabus section 4.5): A billing feature lists acceptance criteria that depend on a hidden internal database column not visible to stakeholders, making the result impossible to verify from business behavior. The targeted safeguard for the current case is: Run periodic mutation or intentional-failure checks against ATDD step definitions.
This preventive step mitigates a different project risk (syllabus section 4.4): A team follows a fixed smoke checklist through a stable feature but refuses to explore a newly observed intermittent timeout that might hide a broader outage. The targeted safeguard for the current case is: Run periodic mutation or intentional-failure checks against ATDD step definitions.