Discussing code quality requires precise technical collocations. This quiz focuses on the standard phrases for enforcing standards, improving coverage, refactoring, and addressing technical debt.
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Fill in: 'The team agreed to use linters and automated gates to ___ coding standards across all repositories.'
We 'enforce standards' — 'enforce' conveys that standards are not optional and that tooling or process will ensure compliance. 'Maintain standards' focuses on keeping them stable over time; 'apply' suggests a one-time act; 'keep' is informal and does not imply systematic compliance checking.
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Fill in: 'As part of the quality initiative, each squad is expected to ___ code coverage to at least 80%.'
We 'raise code coverage' — 'raise' is the standard collocation for increasing a metric from a lower to a higher level. 'Increase code coverage' is also correct; 'improve code coverage' is natural but less precise; 'grow' is informal and typically used for business metrics rather than technical ones.
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Fill in: 'The platform team spent the last sprint working to ___ cyclomatic complexity in the legacy billing module.'
We 'reduce complexity' — 'reduce' is the standard engineering collocation for bringing a metric to a healthier, lower level through deliberate effort. 'Lower complexity' is acceptable; 'decrease' is more formal and less common in engineering discussions; 'cut complexity' is informal.
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Fill in: 'The tech lead blocked time in Q3 to ___ the authentication codebase before adding new features.'
We 'refactor a codebase' — 'refactor' is the precise engineering term for restructuring existing code without changing its external behaviour. 'Rewrite' implies replacing code from scratch; 'clean' is informal and imprecise; 'rebuild' implies starting over rather than improving in place.
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Fill in: 'Before the acquisition, investors asked the engineering team to quantify and ___ the accumulated tech debt.'
We 'resolve tech debt' — 'resolve' is the standard collocation for addressing tech debt as a structured engineering task. 'Clear tech debt' is informal; 'pay off tech debt' uses the financial metaphor literally and is common in informal discussions; 'fix tech debt' is vague and does not capture the planned, systematic nature of debt reduction.