Examples
See how weak QA interview answers become stronger test design answers
Many QA answers are not wrong - they are just incomplete. What To Test helps you expand from obvious happy paths to risk-based, senior-level coverage.
Example 1
How would you test a login page?
Weak answer
Junior“valid login and invalid password”
It covers the happy path and one basic negative case, but misses account states, security, session behavior, UX, and accessibility.
Better answer
Senior“valid login, invalid password, empty fields, unknown email, locked user, remember me, forgot password, brute force protection, rate limiting, generic error message, password masking, session cookies, redirect after login, keyboard navigation”
It covers functional behavior, negative cases, account states, security risks, session behavior, and accessibility.
Why it is better
It covers functional behavior, negative cases, account states, security risks, session behavior, and accessibility.
What categories improved
Can you improve the weak answer?
Try the related challenge and compare your coverage with checklist-based feedback.
Example 2
How would you test payment checkout?
Weak answer
Junior“visa card, paypal, buy one product”
It mentions payment methods and a simple purchase, but misses failure recovery, duplicate submit, tax, promo codes, order consistency, receipt, security, and UX.
Better answer
Senior“successful checkout, visa and paypal, declined card, provider timeout, retry, duplicate submit, tax calculation, promo code, shipping address, order confirmation email, inventory reservation, no duplicate orders, clear payment status”
It covers happy path, payment failures, recovery, calculations, backend consistency, and user experience.
Why it is better
It covers happy path, payment failures, recovery, calculations, backend consistency, and user experience.
What categories improved
Can you improve the weak answer?
Try the related challenge and compare your coverage with checklist-based feedback.
Example 3
How would you test password reset?
Weak answer
Junior“existing email, expired token, weak password”
It covers a few useful checks, but misses unknown email privacy, reused and invalid tokens, multiple reset requests, session invalidation, email delays, backend errors, and accessibility.
Better answer
Senior“existing email, unknown email generic response, reset email delivered, expired token, reused token, invalid token, weak password, confirmation mismatch, old password rejected, rate limiting, session invalidation, multiple reset requests, old reset email after new request, email provider delay, backend 500, keyboard navigation, labels, focus states, screen reader errors”
It covers the recovery lifecycle, token safety, abuse prevention, account/session behavior, backend failures, and accessible error handling.
Why it is better
It covers the recovery lifecycle, token safety, abuse prevention, account/session behavior, backend failures, and accessible error handling.
What categories improved
Can you improve the weak answer?
Try the related challenge and compare your coverage with checklist-based feedback.
Example 4
How would you test Create User API?
Weak answer
Junior“201 created, invalid email”
It covers a basic success case and one validation case, but misses duplicate users, required fields, authorization, role escalation, schema, data persistence, and error codes.
Better answer
Senior“201 created with valid payload, required fields, invalid email, duplicate email, unauthorized request, forbidden admin role, malformed JSON, response schema, database record created, audit log, 400/401/403/409 status codes, no sensitive data in response”
It covers functional behavior, validation, authorization, security, backend persistence, schemas, and status codes.
Why it is better
It covers functional behavior, validation, authorization, security, backend persistence, schemas, and status codes.
What categories improved
Can you improve the weak answer?
Try the related challenge and compare your coverage with checklist-based feedback.
Ready to practice?
Try a real prompt, write your own answer, and compare it with senior-level coverage.
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