BCS BA Found. · BCS · Investigating the Business Situation · Bank updated 2026-07-03
BCS BA Found. practice questions: Investigating the Business Situation
5 free questions from 17 on this area · answer and explanation for each · no sign-up
These 5 questions come from the Investigating the Business Situation section of our BCS BA Found. bank (17 questions on this area, which carries 13% of the real exam). Every question is original, with the correct answer explained and linked to the source it is drawn from.
1/5 · Investigating the Business Situation
A business analyst is facilitating a workshop and wants participants to visually capture how different departments, external agencies and prevailing concerns interact within a confusing, messy business situation, without following a strict diagramming notation. Which visualisation technique is most appropriate to use during the workshop?
AA CARDI log
BA use case diagram
CA RASCI matrix
DA rich picture
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2/5 · Investigating the Business Situation
Which type of interview is characterised by the BA preparing a fixed set of questions, asked in a fixed order to every interviewee, with little scope to deviate based on the interviewee's responses?
AUnstructured interview
BSemi-structured interview
CGroup interview
DStructured interview
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3/5 · Investigating the Business Situation · hard
A project team builds a quick, simple mock-up of a proposed screen purely to help stakeholders clarify and confirm their requirements, with no intention of reusing any part of the mock-up in the final delivered solution. What type of prototype is this?
AEvolutionary prototype
BThrow-away prototype
COperational prototype
DPersona-based prototype
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4/5 · Investigating the Business Situation · hard
A BA wants to establish, with statistical confidence, the proportion of time a warehouse team spends on each of several different activities over a typical month, without observing every worker continuously. Which technique is best suited to this requirement?
AA single structured interview with the warehouse supervisor
BFormal observation, following one worker continuously for a full shift
CActivity sampling, taking a large number of observations at random intervals over the period
DDocument analysis of existing warehouse procedure manuals
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5/5 · Investigating the Business Situation · hard
A business analyst is investigating how a claims-processing team handles an unusual escalation procedure that occurs only a handful of times per year and cannot be predicted in advance. Continuous on-site presence cannot be justified while waiting for an occurrence. Which investigation technique is most suitable for capturing what actually happens when the escalation occurs?
ASpecial purpose records, asking staff to complete a log or record whenever the escalation occurs
BActivity sampling, because a statistically valid proportion of time spent on the escalation can be calculated from brief random observations
CUnstructured interviews conducted after the event, relying on staff to recall exactly what they did
DFormal observation, with the analyst present at all times until the escalation is triggered
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A is correct. The syllabus distinguishes special purpose records from other fact-finding techniques precisely because they suit activities that happen too rarely, unpredictably, or over too long a period for direct or sampled observation to be practical. Staff themselves capture the facts as the event occurs, giving more reliable data than exception recall after the fact or a statistical sampling method that assumes reasonable frequency.
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