ISTQB CT-MBT study plan

Define model-based testing (MBT) in your own words and contrast it with scripted and keyword-driven testing on at least four dimensions (artifact reuse, maintenance cost, abstraction level, traceability)

Map each MBT activity (model construction, test selection criteria, test case generation, concretization, execution, verdict and analysis) onto the corresponding steps of the fundamental test process as described in ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-4 terminology

Classify at least six example systems (e.g., a login flow, a communication protocol, a GUI wizard, an embedded controller) as suitable or unsuitable for MBT and justify each with a stated criterion

Explain the roles of test model, system model, and test oracle in MBT and identify where each appears in a small end-to-end example you sketch yourself

Compare state machine, statechart, decision table, and classification tree notations by expressing the same discount-rule example in all four and noting what each notation makes easy or hard to express

Construct a finite state machine for a shopping-cart checkout flow with at least eight states, twelve transitions, guards, and reset behavior, then verify it handles every transition you intended

Draw a statechart with hierarchy and orthogonal regions for a device with a power state and independent network and storage subsystems, and explain what the hierarchy removes compared with a flat machine

Identify which notation fits a given test problem (combinatorial input constraints, event-driven behavior, data-dependent rules) and record the decision rule you used

Derive transition-pair (switch) coverage and full transition coverage test suites by hand from your week-2 state machine and count the resulting test cases for each criterion

Apply equivalence partitioning and boundary value analysis to the data guards in your models and merge the resulting data values into the transition-derived tests

Express the same behavior in a UML state machine and in a textual/DSL notation (e.g., a state-transition table or a Gherkin-style scenario set) and compare generation effort and readability

Explain how a test selection criterion constrains generation and why coverage of the model is not the same as coverage of the system under test

Define model coverage, data coverage, and requirement coverage, and state for each what it does and does not guarantee about defect detection

Evaluate a model for quality defects: identify unreachable states, dead transitions, nondeterminism, missing guards, and ambiguous or missing expected outputs in a model you or a peer produced

Compute coverage of a given test suite over a decision table (condition and action coverage) and over a state machine (state, transition, transition-pair) and identify the uncovered elements

Justify a stopping criterion for a project using at least three coverage measures and a risk argument, rather than a single percentage

Produce a traceability matrix linking model elements (states, transitions, decisions) to requirements and to generated test cases, and flag requirements with no model element

Design a generation strategy that combines a structural criterion with data selection and state the expected number of test cases before generating

Explain how test generation from a model handles infeasible paths and how you would detect and document them

Describe how MBT changes test design effort, maintenance, and review workload across the lifecycle and where the cost shifts when the model changes

Compare at least four categories of MBT tool support (model editors, generators, adapters/concretization layers, coverage analyzers, CI integration) and state the selection criteria you would apply

Sketch an integration architecture showing how a generated test suite is concretized and executed against a system under test through an adapter, including where the oracle lives

Identify the skills, roles, and process changes a team needs to adopt MBT, and list the top three adoption risks with a mitigation for each

Explain how MBT fits into a CI pipeline, including what triggers regeneration and how model changes are versioned alongside test code

Run a small end-to-end MBT cycle on a self-chosen example: build the model, select a criterion, generate or hand-derive tests, concretize, execute manually, and record verdicts

Measure the effort spent per phase and compare it with an estimate you wrote before starting, then explain the largest deviation

Refactor the model after finding a defect and show how many test cases changed, demonstrating the maintenance argument for MBT

Summarize the business case for MBT in a specific project context using the measured effort data rather than generic claims

Answer at least 120 practice questions across all four domains under timed conditions and record accuracy per domain

Re-derive from memory the definitions of MBT, test model, test selection criterion, and the main coverage measures, and correct any gaps found

Review every missed question and write a one-line reason for each error classified as knowledge gap, misreading, or terminology confusion

Rehearse the notation-selection, coverage-stopping, and tool-integration decisions you documented in earlier weeks so you can justify them concisely under exam conditions