CISA Practice Question: Information Systems Acquisition, Development, and Implementation
Which of the following is the BEST control to ensure that user acceptance testing (UAT) is effective?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
UAT testers are from the business and use realistic data
UAT should be performed by actual end users using real data to validate business requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
UAT scripts are written by developers
Why it's wrong here
Developer-authored scripts encode the same assumptions as the code, so they cannot independently validate fitness for business purpose. Scripts should derive from user requirements and business processes. Developers writing them is tempting because they know the functionality intimately, which suits unit or integration testing, not acceptance validation.
- ✗
UAT is performed after deployment
Why it's wrong here
Performing UAT after deployment means defects are found once users depend on the system in production, so acceptance cannot gate release. It is tempting because post-implementation review confirms benefits, and would be valid as a separate assurance step, but effective UAT must execute against a controlled pre-production environment before go-live.
- ✓
UAT testers are from the business and use realistic data
Why this is correct
Effectiveness depends on testers representing real users exercising genuine business workflows against representative data. Business testers with realistic data validate that the system meets actual operational needs, whereas IT staff or synthetic data would miss usability and process gaps.
- ✗
UAT is conducted by the quality assurance team
Why it's wrong here
Quality assurance verifies technical correctness against specifications, not whether the system supports actual business workflows; that judgement belongs to end users. QA-led testing is tempting because the team is skilled at structured test execution, and it would be correct for system or regression testing rather than acceptance.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This CISA question is part of Courseiva's 934-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CISA practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISACA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CISA exam.