Program Development Life cycle — practice questions

Here is a possible mark-scheme answer:

1. Requirements Gathering: The analyst would interview student representatives and administrative staff to understand their needs. [1] They would ask questions like 'How do students currently sign up?', 'What information needs to be stored about each student and club?', and 'What reports do staff need to generate?'. [1]
2. Feasibility Study: The analyst would assess if the project is viable. This includes technical feasibility (does the college have the hardware/expertise?), economic feasibility (can the college afford to develop and run the system?), and operational feasibility (will staff and students be able to use the new system effectively?). [1]
3. Producing a Requirements Specification: The analyst would create a formal document detailing all findings. [1] This document would specify the inputs (student details, club choices), processes (enrolment validation, capacity checks), and outputs (confirmation emails, class lists for club leaders) of the system. [1]

Here is a possible mark-scheme answer:

1. Create a Test Plan: A document is created outlining the features to be tested, the testing strategy, and the expected results. [1]
2. Individual Module Testing (Unit Testing): Each part of the program, such as the student login module or the club selection module, is tested in isolation to ensure it works correctly. [1]
3. System Testing: The entire system is tested as a whole to ensure all the individual modules integrate and work together correctly. For example, checking that when a student enrols in a club, the club's member count is correctly updated. [1]
4. Test Data Example: To test the feature that limits club capacity to 30 members, the tester would use:
   • Normal data: Attempt to enrol the 15th student. Expected outcome: success. [1]
   • Boundary data: Attempt to enrol the 30th student, and then the 31st student. Expected outcome: success for the 30th, failure/error message for the 31st. [1]
   • Erroneous data: Not applicable here, but could be used elsewhere, e.g., entering text into a numeric field.