Systems Thinking CT-ATLAS Practice Questions (Page 5)

Questions 21–25

1. 21foundation · easy

   When interpreting a system map, what does an arrow from 'Test Execution' to 'Defect Management' typically indicate?

   • AThat Test Execution and Defect Management are unrelated
   • BThat Test Execution is more important than Defect Management
   • CThat Defect Management is the cause of Test Execution
   • DThat Test Execution provides input to Defect Management
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2. 22application · medium

   A test manager at a large e-commerce company notices that the number of defects found in production has increased, even though the number of test cases executed has also increased. A system map reveals that the increase in test cases has led to longer regression cycles, which has caused feature teams to delay merging their code, leading to larger integration batches. What is the emergent behavior described in this scenario?

   • AThe test cases are not being executed correctly, leading to false positives that mask real defects.
   • BThe increase in test cases directly causes more production defects due to poor test design.
   • CThe longer regression cycles create larger integration batches, which increase the risk of integration defects escaping to production.
   • DThe feature teams are deliberately introducing defects because they are frustrated with the long regression cycles.
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4. 23expert · hard

   A test leader at a healthcare software company is trying to reduce the cost of quality. The company has a large manual regression suite that takes 6 weeks to execute before each release. The test leader has identified that the manual suite is the bottleneck. Which intervention represents the HIGHEST leverage point for reducing the cost of quality in this system?

   • AIncrease the size of the manual test team to reduce the 6-week duration by parallelizing the work.
   • BShift testing left by integrating test design and execution into the feature teams, enabling continuous testing rather than a final regression phase.
   • CReduce the scope of the regression suite by analyzing which tests have not found a defect in the last 10 releases and removing them.
   • DAutomate the entire manual regression suite using a record-and-playback tool to save time in future releases.
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5. 24application · medium

   A test manager is creating a system map to understand why the time-to-market for new features has increased despite faster development cycles. The map shows that feature teams deliver code quickly, but the central QA team has a bottleneck in test data preparation. The QA team waits for the operations team to refresh the database, which happens only weekly. Which element of the system map BEST represents the relationship between the QA bottleneck and the weekly database refresh?

   • AA reinforcing loop showing that faster feature delivery leads to more QA work, which further delays releases.
   • BA stock-and-flow diagram showing the accumulation of untested features as a stock, with the refresh as an outflow.
   • CA dependency arrow from the operations team's weekly refresh to the QA team's test data preparation, indicating a delay in the flow.
   • DA balancing loop where the QA team's backlog is reduced by the weekly refresh, keeping the system stable.
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6. 25foundation · easy

   In the context of agile testing at scale, what is the primary focus of systems thinking?

   • AOptimizing individual test cases for maximum coverage
   • BUnderstanding how the parts of the system interact and influence each other
   • CFocusing solely on the end-user perspective to drive quality
   • DEnsuring that each team works independently to avoid interference
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