The effectiveness of a test suite in defect detection refers to the extent to which the test suite could detect the defects hidden in the software. How to evaluate this performance of a test suite is an important issue. Coverage and mutation score are two of the most important and widely used metrics for test suite effectiveness. To quantify the defect detection capability of a test suite, researchers have devoted a large amount of research effort to this issue and have made significant progress. However, inconsistent conclusions can be observed among the existing studies, and some challenges still call for prompt resolution in the area. This study systematically summarizes the research results achieved by scholars both in China and abroad in the field of the evaluation of test suite effectiveness over the years. To start with, it expounds the problems in the research on the evaluation of test suite effectiveness. Then, it outlines and analyzes the evaluation of test suite effectiveness based on coverage and mutation score and presents the application of the evaluation of test suite effectiveness in test suite optimization. Finally, the study points out the challenges faced by this line of research and suggests the directions of future research.