Test prioritization in Testing Fundamentals - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Why prioritize tests in a large project?

Imagine you have a big software project with thousands of tests but limited time to run them all before a release. Why is test prioritization important in this situation?

A To run tests that take the longest time first to finish testing faster.

B To run tests randomly so every test has an equal chance to run.

C To run only the oldest tests because they are more reliable.

D To run the tests that are most likely to find bugs first, saving time and improving quality.

💡 Hint

Think about which tests give the best value early.

Prioritizing tests helps find bugs earlier by running the most important or risky tests first, which saves time and improves software quality.

❓ Predict Output

intermediate

Output of prioritized test execution order

Given the following test cases with priorities, what is the order of test execution?

Testing Fundamentals

tests = [
  {'name': 'LoginTest', 'priority': 2},
  {'name': 'PaymentTest', 'priority': 1},
  {'name': 'SignupTest', 'priority': 3},
  {'name': 'ProfileTest', 'priority': 2}
]

# Tests run in ascending order of priority (1 is highest)
execution_order = [test['name'] for test in sorted(tests, key=lambda x: x['priority'])]
print(execution_order)

A ['SignupTest', 'LoginTest', 'ProfileTest', 'PaymentTest']

B ['LoginTest', 'ProfileTest', 'PaymentTest', 'SignupTest']

C ['PaymentTest', 'LoginTest', 'ProfileTest', 'SignupTest']

D ['ProfileTest', 'LoginTest', 'SignupTest', 'PaymentTest']

💡 Hint

Lower priority number means higher priority.

The tests are sorted by their priority number ascending: 1 (PaymentTest), 2 (LoginTest, ProfileTest), 3 (SignupTest).

❓ assertion

advanced

Correct assertion for test priority filtering

You want to write an assertion to check that only tests with priority 1 or 2 are selected for execution. Which assertion is correct?

Testing Fundamentals

selected_tests = [
  {'name': 'LoginTest', 'priority': 2},
  {'name': 'PaymentTest', 'priority': 1},
  {'name': 'SignupTest', 'priority': 3}
]

# Which assertion below correctly verifies all selected tests have priority 1 or 2?

A assert all(test['priority'] in [1, 2] for test in selected_tests)

B assert all(test['priority'] == 1 or 2 for test in selected_tests)

C assert any(test['priority'] == 1 or 2 for test in selected_tests)

D assert all(test['priority'] == 1 and test['priority'] == 2 for test in selected_tests)

💡 Hint

Use all() and check membership with in.

Option A correctly checks that every test's priority is either 1 or 2. Option A uses any() which only requires one test to match. Option A and D have logical errors.

🔧 Debug

advanced

Identify the bug in test prioritization code

What is the bug in this Python code that tries to prioritize tests by priority but fails?

Testing Fundamentals

tests = [
  {'name': 'TestA', 'priority': 3},
  {'name': 'TestB', 'priority': 1},
  {'name': 'TestC', 'priority': 2}
]

# Attempt to sort tests by priority
sorted_tests = sorted(tests, key=lambda test: test.priority)
print([t['name'] for t in sorted_tests])

A The sorted function is missing the reverse=True parameter to sort descending.

B The code uses test.priority instead of test['priority'], causing an AttributeError.

C The lambda function should return test['name'] instead of test.priority.

D The print statement should use sorted_tests.name instead of list comprehension.

💡 Hint

Check how dictionary keys are accessed in Python.

Dictionaries use bracket notation with keys as strings, not dot notation. Using test.priority causes an AttributeError.

❓ framework

expert

Best practice for integrating test prioritization in CI pipeline

You want to integrate test prioritization in your Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline to run critical tests first. Which approach is best?

A Tag tests with priority labels and configure the CI to run high-priority tags first, then others later.

B Run all tests in random order every time to avoid bias.

C Run only the oldest tests in the suite to ensure stability.

D Run tests manually outside the CI pipeline to control order.

💡 Hint

Think about automation and maintainability in CI.

Tagging tests by priority and configuring CI to run high-priority tests first is a scalable and automated way to prioritize tests in CI pipelines.