PCEP – Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer Certification: Exam Syllabus

Exam block #1: Basic Concepts (17%)

Objectives covered by the block (5 exam items)

• fundamental concepts: interpreting and the interpreter, compilation and the compiler, language elements, lexis, syntax and semantics, Python keywords, instructions, indenting
• literals: Boolean, integer, floating-point numbers, scientific notation, strings
• comments
• the print() function
• the input() function
• numeral systems (binary, octal, decimal, hexadecimal)
• numeric operators: ** * / % // + –
• string operators: * +
• assignments and shortcut operators

Exam block #2: Data Types, Evaluations, and Basic I/O Operations (20%)

Objectives covered by the block (6 exam items)

• operators: unary and binary, priorities and binding
• bitwise operators: ~ & ^ | << >>
• Boolean operators: not and or
• Boolean expressions
• relational operators ( == != > >= < <= ), building complex Boolean expressions
• accuracy of floating-point numbers
• basic input and output operations using the input(), print(), int(), float(), str(), len() functions
• formatting print() output with end= and sep= arguments
• type casting
• basic calculations
• simple strings: constructing, assigning, indexing, immutability

Exam block #3: Control Flow – loops and conditional blocks (20%)

Objectives covered by the block (6 exam items)

• conditional statements: if, if-else, if-elif, if-elif-else
• multiple conditional statements
• the pass instruction
• building loops: while, for, range(), in
• iterating through sequences
• expanding loops: while-else, for-else
• nesting loops and conditional statements
• controlling loop execution: break, continue

Exam block #4: Data Collections – Lists, Tuples, and Dictionaries (23%)

Objectives covered by the block (7 exam items)

• simple lists: constructing vectors, indexing and slicing, the len() function
• lists in detail: indexing, slicing, basic methods (append(), insert(), index()) and functions (len(), sorted(), etc.), del instruction, iterating lists with the for loop, initializing, in and not in operators, list comprehension, copying and cloning
• lists in lists: matrices and cubes
• tuples: indexing, slicing, building, immutability
• tuples vs. lists: similarities and differences, lists inside tuples and tuples inside lists
• dictionaries: building, indexing, adding and removing keys, iterating through dictionaries as well as their keys and values, checking key existence, keys(), items() and values() methods
• strings in detail: escaping using the \ character, quotes and apostrophes inside strings, multi-line strings, basic string functions.

Exam block #5: Functions (20%)

Objectives covered by the block (6 exam items)

• defining and invoking your own functions and generators
• return and yield keywords, returning results,
• the None keyword,
• recursion
• parameters vs. arguments,
• positional keyword and mixed argument passing,
• default parameter values
• converting generator objects into lists using the list() function
• name scopes, name hiding (shadowing), the global keyword