Free CT-PT sample questions

Correct answer: Spike Testing

Spike testing specifically evaluates a system's ability to handle sudden, extreme bursts of load and verify recovery. While stress testing pushes limits, spike testing focuses on the rapid increase and decrease (impulse) of load.

Correct answer: The database server memory leaks cause a crash after 48 hours of operation.

Resource utilization risks involve the consumption of system resources (CPU, Memory, Disk, Network). A memory leak leading to a crash is a direct failure of resource management/utilization.

Correct answer: Performance Efficiency focuses on response times and resource use, while Reliability focuses on the system's ability to remain accessible and function under specific conditions for a duration.

Performance Efficiency (Time Behavior, Resource Utilization, Capacity) is about how well the system performs relative to resources. Reliability (Maturity, Availability, Fault Tolerance, Recoverability) is about maintaining service levels over time.

Correct answer: False

False. Poor software architecture or inefficient code can cause performance failures regardless of hardware power. Functional correctness does not imply performance efficiency.

Correct answer: Median (50th Percentile)

The Median is less sensitive to outliers than the Mean. While the 90th percentile is good for worst-case analysis, the Median represents the central tendency of the 'typical' user when data is skewed.

Correct answers: Time to First Byte (TTFB); DOM Interactive Time

TTFB is measured from the client perspective (time from request sent to first byte received).

DOM Interactive is a browser-based metric indicating when the page becomes interactive for the user.

Correct answer: The system has reached its saturation point (bottleneck).

When throughput plateaus and response time spikes as load increases, it indicates a resource bottleneck (saturation point) has been reached. Additional requests are queuing.

Correct answer: Component-level micro-benchmarks or 'Performance Unit Tests'

In CI/CD, speed is critical. Small, focused component tests (micro-benchmarks) provide immediate feedback on regression without the time cost of full environment load tests.

Correct answer: Integrating performance considerations and testing earlier in the development lifecycle (design and code phases).

Shift-Left means moving testing activities earlier in the timeline (to the left on a Gantt chart) to catch issues when they are cheaper to fix.

Correct answer: Implement automated regression load tests in the CI pipeline that run against a staging environment nightly.

To catch regressions within a sprint, automated performance tests must run frequently (e.g., nightly) as part of the CI pipeline. Waiting for a hardening phase is too late.