English for a QA interview (IT)

What you’ll practice

Answer typical QA interview questions in English, describe your experience clearly, and stay confident during follow-ups.

Questions

• Tell me about yourself and your QA background.
• What is the difference between verification and validation?
• How do you write a good bug report?
• Describe a difficult bug you found. How did you investigate it?
• How do you prioritize test cases when time is limited?
• What tools have you used (Jira, Postman, Selenium, CI)?
• How do you work with developers when you disagree about a bug severity?

Phrases and vocabulary

Useful phrases

• “In my previous role, I was responsible for…”
• “The steps to reproduce are…”
• “The expected result is…, but the actual result is…”
• “To narrow it down, I checked logs and tried to reproduce it in…”
• “Given the deadline, I prioritized the highest-risk flows…”

Vocabulary

• severity: how critical the issue is
• reproducible: can be reproduced consistently
• regression: something that broke after changes
• workaround: a temporary way to avoid the issue

Example answers (anonymized)

I start with a clear title and exact steps to reproduce. I add environment details, logs or screenshots, and I suggest a likely root cause only if I have evidence. That helps the team fix it faster.