Question Bank

Software Engineering (KDS063)

UNIT-1
(a) Define software engineering. What are the key challenges facing software engineering?
(b) Describe various phases of software development life cycle.
(c) Why there is software crisis in the industry? Discuss.
(d) What are the various software quality attributes? Discuss any two of them.
(e) Write short note on Spiral Model. Also discuss its merits and demerits of this model.
(f) Compare evolutionary development model and iterative enhancement model.
(g) What do you understand by software crisis?
(h) Comment on the statement "software does not wear out".
(i) What is a prototype model? Under what circumstances is it beneficial to construct a
prototype model?
(j) Explain in detail various cycles of spiral model. Also state advantages and disadvantages of
this model.
(k) Define software engineering. Explain in brief about evolution of software.
(l) What are some of the indicators of software crisis?
(m) How Software Engineering Processes are different from Conventional Engineering
Processes?
(n) Spiral model is a realistic approach to the development of large-scale system and software.
Justify and explain the model.
(o) How does the risk factor affect the spiral model of software development?
(p) Explain what is meant by 'software crisis' and how they are handled.
(q) Differentiate between iterative Enhancement Model and Evolutionary Development Model.

UNIT-2
(a) Discuss the general format of a SRS document and discuss its main components in detail.
(b) Write short note on the following with example:
(i) Decision Table
(ii) Feasibility Study.
(c) Why data flow diagram is used? Make a data flow diagram for issue and return of books
from the library.
(d) List out requirements elicitation techniques.
(e) What are the linkages between data flow and E-R diagrams?
(f) Explain in detail the SEI capability maturity model (SEI-CMM) ? Also differentiate it with ISO.
(g) What is SRS? Who are the different categories of uses of the SRS document? What are their
expectations from the SRS document?
(h) What do you understand by quality of software? Explain the role and responsibility of 2A
group in the software organization.
(i) Identify some problems associated with the implementation of a successful quality assurance
plan in a software development organization.
(j) What do you mean by Unambiguous and Complete SRS?
(k) What is requirement analysis? What is its importance? What does a software requirement
specification document (SRS document) contain? Explain.
(l) Which ISO quality assurance standard applies to software engineering? How is it different
from SEI-CMM model?
(m) Why is SRS also known as the black-box specification of system?
(n) Explain any two requirements elicitation methods.

UNIT-3
(a) Write the characteristics of a good design. How the coupling and cohesion measures are
used to find out strength of design? Explain
(b) Differentiate between function oriented design and object oriented design.
(c) Describe layered software design. What are the advantages and disadvantages of layered
software design.
(c) Describe various Halstead software science measures for size, development effort, and
development cost of software product.
(d) Write short note on the importance of software architecture.
(e) What are the objectives of architectural design?
(f) What do you mean by abstraction?
(g) What do you mean by the term cohesion? Explain different types of cohesion.
(h) Explain the principles of design and different concepts used in design of large software.
(i) Discuss the major advantages of object-oriented design approach over the function- oriented
design approach.
(j) What problems arise if two modules have high coupling?
(k) Why is good design important for a software product?
(l) Define Coupling in the context of software design. What are the different types of coupling in
practice? Discuss them briefly. Also discuss why data coupling is the best form of coupling.
(m) Compute function point value for a project with the following domain characteristics:
No. of I/P = 30
No. of O/P = 62
No. of user Inquiries = 24
No. of files = 8
No. of external interfaces = 2
Assume that all the complexity adjustment values are average. Assume that 14 algorithm have
been counted.
(n) List the important shortcomings of LOC for use as a software size metric. Does the function
point metric overcome these? Explain your answer.
(o) For the flow graph shown in Figure,
(i) Compute the cyclomatic complexity
(ii) Find out independent path
UNIT-4
(a) What do you mean by formal technical review? What is its significance in software
development?
(b)Differentiate between error and failure. Which of the two is detected by testing? Justify your
answer.
(c) What is meant by a code walk through? Explain with example.
(d) Write short note on the following with examples :
(i) Unit Testing.
(ii) Acceptance testing.
(e) What do you understand by the clean room strategy? Discuss.
(f) "System testing can be considered as a pure black- box test". Justify your answer.
(g) What is the main weakness of white box testing techniques?
(h) What do you understand by the terms error and fault?
(i) What are test plans and test cases? Illustrate it by an example.
(j) What are the Top-down and Bottom-up integration testing? Explain with example.
(k) Define Testability. Differentiate Alpha testing, Beta testing and System testing.
(l) Explain the role of recursive testing and its role in the integration testing.
(m) Can system testing be considered to be a structural testing?
(n) What do you mean by Black Box Testing? What are some considerations in this regard?
Discuss two methods of black box testing in detail.
(o) Explain the 'Walk Through' approach to software testing.
(p) What do you mean by test-cases? Explain, how will you design black-box test cases for a
function named func-quadratic-eqn. func-quadratic-eqn accepts three floating point numbers
representing a quadratic equation of the form ax2+bx+c=0, computes and displays the solution.
(q) Explain what is meant by 'Integration testing' and 'Regression testing'.

UNIT-5
(a) What are the different types of maintenance that a software product might need? Discuss.
(b) What is risk? How to identify risk?
(c) Describe the COCOMO model. What is its significance?
(d) Write short note on reverse engineering.
(e) What are the main advantages of the CASE tools? Discuss.
(f) Discuss change control process with suitable example.
(g) List the types of software maintenance.
(h) What is the need of software maintenance?
(i) What are the various software re-engineering activities? Discuss.
(j) Write short notes on any two of the following:
(a) Constructive cost models
(b) Software risk
(c) Overview of CASE tools
(d) Software version control
(k) Explain situations under which software re-engineering would be useful.
(l) Heavy maintenance and quality of a software product are inversely proportional. Explain.
(m) What are the generic types of cost models for software cost estimation? Explain.
(n) Describe Version Control and Change Control in the context of Software Configuration
Management.
(o) Discuss the role of the data dictionary in a CASE environment. How automated support for
data dictionary can be provided?
(p) Differentiate corrective, adaptive, perfective and preventive maintenance in the context of
software.
(q) Draw a flow graph, arrive at the cyclomatic complexity and find the set linearly independent
paths for the following program: