Automation maintenance challenges in Testing Fundamentals - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Common cause of flaky automated tests

Which of the following is the most common cause of flaky automated tests that sometimes pass and sometimes fail without code changes?

A Tests run only on local machines without parallel execution

B Tests use hardcoded wait times that are always sufficient

C Tests depend on external systems or network calls that are unstable

D Tests use fixed data that never changes

💡 Hint

Think about what can cause unpredictable delays or failures outside the test code.

Tests that rely on external systems or network calls can fail unpredictably if those systems are slow or down, causing flaky tests.

❓ assertion

intermediate

Assertion to detect UI element disappearance

You want to verify that a loading spinner disappears after a page finishes loading in an automated UI test. Which assertion best checks this?

A assert element.is_displayed() == True

B assert element.is_displayed() == False

C assert element.exists() == True

D assert element.text == 'Loading'

💡 Hint

The spinner should not be visible after loading completes.

Checking that the spinner element is not displayed confirms it disappeared.

🔧 Debug

advanced

Debugging intermittent test failure due to timing

Given this test code snippet, what is the most likely cause of intermittent failure?

Testing Fundamentals

button.click()
assert message.text == 'Success'

A The test does not wait for the message to update after clicking the button

B The assertion syntax is incorrect and causes a syntax error

C The button variable is not defined before clicking

D The message element is not visible on the page

💡 Hint

Think about what happens immediately after clicking a button in UI tests.

The test fails intermittently because it asserts the message text before the UI updates. Adding a wait or retry fixes this.

❓ framework

advanced

Best practice for test data management in automation

Which approach is best to maintain test data for automated tests to reduce maintenance effort?

A Store test data externally in files or databases and load it dynamically during tests

B Hardcode all test data directly inside test scripts

C Manually update test data in each test script whenever requirements change

D Use random data generation without control or tracking

💡 Hint

Think about how to avoid changing many test scripts when data changes.

Externalizing test data allows easy updates without modifying test code, reducing maintenance.

❓ Predict Output

expert

Output of test retry logic with flaky function

What is the output of this Python test retry code when the flaky_function fails the first time and passes the second time?

Testing Fundamentals

def flaky_function():
    flaky_function.counter += 1
    if flaky_function.counter < 2:
        raise Exception('Fail')
    return 'Pass'

flaky_function.counter = 0

for attempt in range(3):
    try:
        result = flaky_function()
        print(f'Attempt {attempt+1}: {result}')
        break
    except Exception as e:
        print(f'Attempt {attempt+1}: {e}')
else:
    print('All attempts failed')

A All attempts failed

B Attempt 1: Pass

C

Attempt 1: Fail
Attempt 2: Fail
Attempt 3: Pass

D

Attempt 1: Fail
Attempt 2: Pass

💡 Hint

Count how many times flaky_function raises an exception before returning 'Pass'.

The function fails once, then passes on the second call, so the loop prints failure then success and stops.