I wrapped up the Metrics section of the reading list today. This brings and end to looking through the question given on the test that I found difficult to remember because of the way it was asked. I was not clued into the author`s names. At any rate I moved on to software testing. There are two pieces of literature mentioned in this section. The 2 pieces are a book called "Testing Computer Software" and a paper called "The Evaluation of Program-Based Software Test Data Adequacy Criteria". The paper is obtainable only through the ACM portal from the DePaul Library. If you have never used this before you will need to use your campus connect password. I had to get the paper for the section I just finished on Metrics using this method also. In the current section of study Software Testing the exam has a question that asks you to describe the weaknesses of three approaches and then asks you to answer a few questions about a small algorithm. It has been very frustrating to try and provide definitions for these approaches. ``Mutation Analysis`` seems to be something easily found but the other two, "Random Testing" and "Equivalence Term Testing", are more difficult. It seems that the paper and the book don`t use the exact terms as used in the test. In the test it even makes a note to not confuse "Equivalence Term Testing" with "Equivalence Partitioning". I find this very ugly. If you cannot find reference to the exact term how do you know that you are describing what the author of the test really wants? I have looked at the citations to the paper mentioned and it has several. I looked at the ones that are by the author. Since this paper is from June 1988 some of the citations are not listed on the ACM portal or on the IEEE portal. So I cannot even look back at what the author might have said in previous papers... maybe using the terms mentioned. Looking in the book I find that the terms are not in the glossary. I looked through a couple of the sections and did not find them either. I guess my plan at this point is to review the paper thoroughly. I will then browse the book and try and get something. Looking into parts of the question may get me through if this is one of the questions I have to answer on the test because of avoidance of one of the others. So, what in the hell is this supposed to teach me? Does the frustration of the way this question is worded teach or "TEST" anything. Why ask about a specific term if it is not the commonly used term? Because, if it was common you would be able to find it in many places, for instance you could google for it or find it in Wikipedia. I think that this kind of question really points to a problem in the way DePaul tests their PhD students. It is not that someone won`t be able to pass the test it is that DePaul won`t be able to test the people that they want for PhD`s.