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Whittaker's General Testing Guidelines

publish date: 2026/06/18 03:41:35.292744 UTC

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Whittaker's book provides general testing guidelines for choosing effective test cases. Which of the following are among his recommended guidelines? Select all that apply.

Only test with inputs that match the specification exactly

Design inputs that cause input buffers to overflow

Avoid testing error conditions since they rarely occur in production

Force invalid outputs to be generated

Repeat the same input or series of inputs numerous times

Choose inputs that force the system to generate all error messages

Force computation results to be too large or too small

Correct Answer

(1) Choose inputs that force the system to generate all error messages

(2) Design inputs that cause input buffers to overflow

(3) Repeat the same input or series of inputs numerous times

(4) Force invalid outputs to be generated

(5) Force computation results to be too large or too small

Explanation

Whittaker's five general guidelines are: (1) choose inputs that force all error messages; (2) design inputs to cause buffer overflow; (3) repeat the same input multiple times; (4) force invalid outputs; (5) force computation results to be too large or too small. These guidelines help find common defect categories through experience-based testing.

Reference

Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 10th edition

Quizzes you can take where this question appears

Choosing Unit Test Cases - Guideline-Based Testing