Which of the following is NOT a component of testing?

The correct choice identifies decision tables as not being a direct component of testing itself, but rather a technique used within the testing process. In software testing, components typically refer to elements involved in the testing activities such as checking for memory leaks, robustness, and coverage metrics.

Memory leak checks are essential in ensuring that a program does not consume unnecessary resources, impacting its performance. Testing robustness involves evaluating how well a system can handle stress and errors, ensuring reliability under various conditions. Branch coverage is a metric used to assess the completeness of testing by ensuring that all possible branches or paths in the code are executed during tests.

In contrast, decision tables are a modeling technique that helps organize and represent complex conditional logic. While they are instrumental in deriving test cases, they do not directly pertain to the actual testing process itself. Instead, they serve as a tool for test case design, guiding the tester to cover various scenarios that the application must handle. Thus, this choice accurately reflects an aspect that is related to test design rather than being a core component of testing.