Grade 11 · Practical

Problem solving with testing

Structured Programming · about 4 min

Analyse → Design → Code → Test → Maintain, looping on test failures.

Good practical marks come from planning AND testing. Apply IPO and trace tables to design, then test deliberately with well-chosen data.

Key points

Plan with IPO and pseudocode/flowcharts; build incrementally, testing each part before moving on.
Test with three kinds of data: normal (typical valid input), extreme/boundary (the edges, e.g. 0 or the max), and invalid (wrong type or out of range).
Validation rejects bad input at entry (range checks, type checks) so the program stays robust.
Keep a test plan: input, expected output, actual output — differences point to the bug.

Key terms

Test data — normal, extreme and invalid values chosen to exercise a program.
Validation — checking input is sensible before processing.

EXAM TIP

when asked for test data, give one of each kind (normal, boundary, invalid) with the expected result.