Which Test Technique Is the Question Asking For?
Candidates rarely lose chapter 4 marks because they cannot execute a technique. They lose them by executing the wrong one, correctly. The techniques are taught one at a time and then examined mixed together with no label, so the skill being tested is recognition - knowing, before you count anything, which procedure the stem wants.
Read the stem, then pick
| If the question gives you | The technique is | And you count |
|---|---|---|
| A range or set of inputs treated alike, and asks how many groups | Equivalence partitioning | Partitions - and remember the invalid ones |
| A range, and asks which values to test at its edges | Boundary value analysis | Coverage items - 2 or 3 per boundary value, as the stem specifies |
| Several conditions that are all true or false at the same moment | Decision table testing | Columns - 2 to the power of the number of binary conditions |
| States, events, and what happens in what order | State transition testing | Transitions - every valid one for 0-switch coverage |
| A tester's knowledge, a checklist, or an unscripted session | Experience-based - error guessing, checklist or exploratory | Nothing - these are not counted, and that is itself the tell |
| Source code, or asks about statements and branches | Not black-box at all - this is white-box | Statements or branches |
The single most useful question to ask is whether order matters. If the same inputs arriving in a different sequence would behave differently, you need a state model; if the outcome depends only on which conditions hold together, you need a decision table. Everything else follows from what the stem asks you to produce - groups mean partitions, values at the edges mean boundaries.
The distinctions worth working through
Three of these carry enough detail to be worth a page each. The rest of the exam’s confusable pairs are covered in one line apiece on the glossary term pages they belong to.
2-Value vs 3-Value Boundary Value Analysis
2-value boundary value analysis takes two coverage items for each boundary value - the boundary value and its closest neighbour in the adjacent partition; 3-value boundary value analysis takes three - the boundary value and both its neighbours.
Read the comparison →
Statement Coverage vs Branch Coverage
Statement coverage counts the executable statements your tests have run; branch coverage counts the transfers of control your tests have taken - which is the stronger criterion, because 100% branch coverage always delivers 100% statement coverage while the reverse is not true.
Read the comparison →
Decision Table vs State Transition Testing
A decision table models combinations of conditions that all hold at the same moment; a state transition model captures how the system moves between states as events arrive in sequence - so if reordering the same inputs would change the outcome, you need a state model.
Read the comparison →
Test your knowledge with real ISTQB-style questions
You’ve learned Chapter 4. Now sit a full 40-question paper and see if it holds up under the clock.
Or read questions with worked answers, or take a chapter-only practice drill.