A standard interview question that Microsoft asks is "How would you test X?" where 'X' is a common everyday item like a pen, toaster, ATM etc.
Now you can ask, how does this relate to Software Testing at all? To be honest with you, I thought the same when I was once asked "How would you test a vending machine?" At that time my answer went along the lines "... put coins in it and see if I get the right item...". I learned later that Microsoft asks these types of questions not to get a whole bunch or 'right' and 'wrong' test cases but to see your thought process - how would you go about testing something out of the box. As was told to me after that disastrous interview, people with a testing mindset automatically start categorizing their test cases as Functional Testing, Stress Testing, Load Testing etc.
Here's a blog entry I found written by Mike Kelly while doing some research and preparing for another interview with Microsoft. It lists 144 test cases on how to test a stapler. Pretty impressive huh? It was inspirational actually and I can honestly tell you that going through it and reading through other manuals seriously helped me develop a testing mindset close to what that interviewer told me. I am still a Software Developer at heart though :p
