Deck 7: Software Development

Question 1

The accurate, thorough, and timely processing of business transactions is a key requirement for business information systems. A software defect in such a system can be devastating, resulting in lost customers and reduced revenue.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

A software development methodology is a standard, proven work process that enables systems analysts, programmers, project managers, and others to make controlled and orderly progress in developing high-quality software.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Breach of warranty occurs when a seller or lessee either misrepresents the quality of a product or conceals a defect in it.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The various products created during the software development process such as a statement of requirements, flowcharts, and user documentation are called developments.

Question 5

There have been many delays in the development of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner including problems with the software that controls and monitors the aircraft's braking system.

Question 6

Strict liability is the failure to do what a reasonable person would do, or doing something that a reasonable person would not do.

Question 7

A defect in process control software can lead to decreased product quality, increased waste and costs, or even unsafe operating conditions for employees.

Question 8

The decision support system is used to improve the decision making in a variety of industries.

Question 9

Software manufacturers face economic, ethical, and organizational challenges associated with improving the quality of their software.

Question 10

The Microsoft Vista operating system took over seven years to develop and consists of more than 100 million lines of code.

Question 11

According to one study, even experienced software developers unknowingly inject an average of one design or implementation defect for every 15 - 20 lines of code.

Question 12

The liability of manufacturers, sellers, lessors, and others for injuries caused by defective products is commonly referred to as negligence.

Question 13

A software feature is any error that, if not removed, could cause a software system to fail to meet its users' needs.

Question 14

The impact of a software defect is catastrophic and leads to death or serious injury.

Question 15

A warranty assures buyers or lessees that a product meets certain standards of quality.

Question 16

Contributory negligence means that the defendant is held responsible for injuring another person, regardless of negligence or intent.

Question 17

Quality assurance refers to methods within the development cycle designed to guarantee reliable operation of the product.

Question 18

Software defect is the degree to which a software product meets the needs of its users.

Question 19

The extreme pressure that software companies feel to reduce the time to market for their products has little impact on the quality of the software.

Question 20

If the product fails to meet the terms of its warranty, the buyer or lessee can sue for contributory negligence.

Question 21

The degree to which a software product meets the needs of its users is called software ____.

A) accuracy
B) reliability
C) quality
D) availability

Question 22

The first release of any software ____.

A) is usually the least inexpensive release
B) has the least number of defects
C) often fails to include user documentation
D) rarely meets all its users' expectations

Question 23

There is no federal product liability law; instead, product liability is mainly covered by common law and ____ which deals with the sale of goods.

A) Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution
B) Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code
C) The Code of Federal Regulations
D) Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

Question 24

User acceptance testing is a process improvement approach that defines the essential elements of effective processes.

Question 25

Failure mode and effects analysis is an important technique used to develop ISO 9000-compliant systems by both evaluating reliability and determining the effects of system and equipment failures.

Question 26

One cause for the delay of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the ____.

A) braking system did not work properly
B) inability to trace lines of code back to specific system requirements for the braking system
C) decision to use electric brakes instead of conventional, hydraulically actuated brakes
D) inability to design the new brake system

Question 27

The objective of quality management is to ____.

A) eliminate mistakes
B) deliver high-quality systems that meet the needs of their users
C) produce software deliverables that are flawless
D) specify the quality controls checks that need to be made

Question 28

Additional features in a new release of software ____.

A) make it more useful and easier to sell
B) improve the quality of the release
C) allow for more time for testing
D) ensure more rigorous quality management

Question 29

The Capability Maturity Model Integration-Development process improvement approach defines six levels of software development maturity.

Question 30

There are two forms of dynamic testing-black-box testing and white-box testing.

Question 31

It is estimated that the Microsoft Vista operating system ____.

A) took over five years to develop
B) contains less than 50 million lines of code
C) contains fewer than 5,000 bugs
D) will be wildly popular with PC users

Question 32

A primary cause of poor software quality is that ____.

A) development teams fail to use the latest design techniques
B) developers spend too little time testing
C) many developers do not know how to design quality into software from the very start
D) developers do not know how to test software effectively

Question 33

Software used to control many industrial processes in an effort to reduce costs, eliminate human error, improve quality, and shorten the time it takes to manufacture products is called a(n) ____.

A) business information system
B) decision support system
C) process control system
D) expert system

Question 34

Many shortcuts can be taken when safety-critical software is being developed.

Question 35

Redundancy, the provision of multiple interchangeable components to perform a single function, is a key element of the standard decision support system.

Question 36

As the software maturity level increases, the organization improves its ability to deliver good software on time and on budget.

Question 37

White-box testing involves viewing the software unit as a device that has expected input and output behaviors but whose internal workings are unknown.

Question 38

Reliability is the probability of a component or system performing without failure over its product life.

Question 39

The safe operation of many safety-critical systems relies on the flawless performance of software.

Question 40

This organization was forced to notify more than 800,000 borrowers that a software installation error had resulted in a miscalculation of their loans and that their payments would increase.

A) Sallie Mae
B) Freddie Mac
C) AIG
D) Bank of America

Question 41

The plaintiff must have a ____ that the supplier did not fulfill in order to win a breach-of-warranty claim.

A) warranty
B) valid contract
C) purchase order
D) shipping notice

Question 42

When developing safety-critical software ____.

A) many more quality assurance tasks are performed but at a much faster pace than on other types of projects
B) a project safety engineer maintains a hazard log
C) there is much more informal documentation of requirements and test results
D) although the elapsed development time increases, the development cost is reduced

Question 43

After an organization decides to adopt CMMI-DEV, it must ____.

A) budget considerable sums of money to cover the additional expense
B) conduct an assessment of its software development practices
C) hire a software development guru
D) revamp all its current software development practices

Question 44

____ describes how a product or process could fail to perform the desired function described by the customer.

A) CMMI-DEV
B) Quality assurance
C) ISO 9000
D) FMEA

Question 45

System developers must understand the environment in which their systems will operate and design systems that are as immune to ____________________ as possible.

Question 46

Under the doctrine of supervening event, ____.

A) the original seller is not liable if the precise software specifications were provided by the government and the software conformed to the specifications
B) the original seller is not liable because a statute of limitations has expired
C) the original seller is not liable because the buyer used the product in a manner for which it was not intended
D) the original seller is not liable if the software was materially altered after it left the seller's possession and the alteration caused the injury

Question 47

To obtain the ____ certificate, an organization must submit to an examination by an external auditor and have written procedures for all processes, follow those procedures, and prove to an auditor that it has fulfilled these requirements.

A) CMMI-DEV
B) FMEA
C) ISO 9000
D) quality assurance

Question 48

Crane Company CEO Eric Fast maintains that Boeing changed the requirements of the brake control system resulting in the need to develop a new ____________________ of the brake control system.

Question 49

In the development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, tracing lines of code back to specific requirements for the electric braking system is a critical part of code ____________________.

Question 50

____________________ focuses on defining, measuring, and refining the quality of the development process and the products developed during its various stages.

Question 51

____ occurs when a seller or lessor either misrepresents the quality of a product or conceals a defect in it.

A) Breach of warranty
B) Fraud
C) Intentional misrepresentation
D) Slander

Question 52

____________________ software has long been required to support the fields of air traffic control, nuclear power, automobile safety, health care, military and defense, and space exploration.

Question 53

Even with safety precautions in place, the software associated with safety-critical systems ____.

A) is vulnerable to errors that can lead to injury or death
B) simply never fails
C) exhibits 100% reliability
D) exhibits both 100% availability and reliability

Question 54

A(n) ____ requires several standards must be met including; the goods must be fit for the ordinary purpose for which they are used, the quality of the goods must pass without objection in the trade, and the goods must meet a fair average or middle range of quality.

A) quality control standard
B) implied warranty of merchantability
C) warranty
D) user need

Question 55

After successful unit testing, the software units are combined into an integrated subsystem that undergoes rigorous testing to ensure that the linkages among the various subsystems work successfully. This form of testing is called ____.

A) static testing
B) integration testing
C) system testing
D) user acceptance testing

Question 56

Risk involves the measurement or assessment of two parameters, the probability of an undesirable event occurring and ____.

A) the frequency of that event
B) the magnitude of the event's consequences
C) the duration of the event
D) the number of people affected by the event

Question 57

When sued for negligence, a software developer is not held responsible for every product defect that could have been detected that causes customer or third-party loss. Instead, responsibility is limited to ____.

A) harmful defects that could have been detected and corrected through "reasonable" software development practices
B) the most harmful defects that cause the most serious problems
C) those defects uncovered in the first 90 days of product usage
D) those defects for which no software upgrades have been released

Question 58

One approach to quality assurance is to test the code of a completed unit of software by actually entering test data and comparing the results to the expected results. This is called ____.

A) dynamic testing
B) black-box testing
C) white-box testing
D) static testing

Question 59

____ defines five levels of software development maturity and identifies the issues that are most critical to software quality and process improvement.

A) Capability Maturity Model Integration-Dev
B) ISO 9000
C) Quality assurance
D) FMEA

Question 60

____ is a standard, proven work process that enables project team members to make controlled and orderly progress in developing high-quality software.

A) ISO 9000
B) CMMI
C) Software development methodology
D) Quality assurance

Question 61

The Capability Maturity Model Integration was developed by people at the Software Engineering Institute at ____________________.

Question 62

____________________ is a form of software testing that treats the software unit as a device that has expected input and output behaviors.

Question 63

Most smart system developers try to identify and remove errors ____________________ in the development process not only as a cost-saving measure but as the most efficient way to improve software quality,

Question 64

Studies have shown that the cost to identify and remove a defect in an early stage of software development can be up to ____________________ times less than removing a defect in an operating piece of software that has been distributed to customers.

Question 65

Software that is used daily by workers worldwide likely contains thousands of ____________________.

Question 66

As a result of the lack of ____________________ in software, many organizations avoid buying the first release of a major software product or prohibit its use in critical systems.

Question 67

There are _________________________ for claims of liability which means that an injured party must file suit within a certain amount of time after the injury occurs.

Question 68

In determining whether warranty disclaimers are unreasonable, the court attempts to evaluate if the contract was made between two ____________________ or between an expert and a novice.

Question 69

____________________ is a form of testing that employs special software to look for suspicious patterns in programs that might indicate a defect.

Question 70

A software development methodology recommends specific ____________________ for accomplishing the various software development activities.

Question 71

The defendant in a negligence case may either answer the charge with a legal justification for the alleged misconduct or demonstrate that the plaintiff's own actions contributed to their injuries. In such a case, the plaintiff's own actions are called _________________________.

Question 72

Instead of checking for errors throughout the development process, some software development organizations rely primarily on ____________________ just before the product ships to ensure some degree of quality.

Question 73

Even when a contract is written expressly to protect against supplier negligence, courts may ____________________ such terms as unreasonable.

Question 74

_________________________ is independent testing performed by trained end users to ensure that the system operates as expected.

Question 75

Many software customers question whether the decision to cut ____________________ in favor of feature enhancement is ethical.

Question 76

A manager who takes a ____________________, profit-oriented view may feel that additional time and money spent on quality assurance will only delay a new product's release, sales revenue, and profits.

Question 77

____________________ means that the defendant is held responsible for injuring another person, regardless of negligence or intent.

Question 78

Without ____________________ computers, workers could react to defects only after the fact and would have to guess at the adjustments needed to correct the process.

Question 79

A business information system is a set of interrelated components-including hardware, software, databases, networks, procedures, and ____________________-that collects data, processes it, and disseminates the output.

Question 80

Software product liability claims are typically based on strict liability, negligence, breach of warranty, or ____________________-sometimes in combination with one another.