PCEP Exam Prep — Mock Exam & Review

• The PCEP exam format — duration, structure, what's asked.
• A 10-question mock exam covering the four PCEP topic areas.
• Identifying your weak spots from the mock.
• A study plan for the real exam.

Exam:        PCEP-30-02 (Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer)
Duration:    40 minutes
Questions:   ~30 (single-choice, multiple-choice, drag-and-drop, gap-fill)
Pass mark:   70%
Cost:        ~USD 59 online
Provided:    Python Institute / OpenEDG

Topics by approximate weight:

Section 1 · Computer Programming and Python Fundamentals    ~15%
Section 2 · Data Types, Evaluations, and Basic I/O          ~20%
Section 3 · Control Flow — Conditional Blocks and Loops     ~20%
Section 4 · Data Collections — Tuples, Dictionaries, Lists  ~25%
Section 5 · Functions and Exceptions                        ~20%

Note: PCEP does not cover OOP, file I/O, or anything from L3-13 onwards. Those are PCAP (the next level up). Today's mock focuses on PCEP topics from your L1-L2 work.

Aim for 8/10 in 15 minutes. Each question is in PCEP style.

Q1 · Operators

print(2 ** 3 ** 2)

What is printed?

1. 64
2. 512
3. 72
4. Error

Q2 · Types

x = "3" + str(5)
print(x)

What is printed?

1. 8
2. "35"
3. 35
4. TypeError

Q3 · Conditional

x = 0
if x:
    print("yes")
elif x == 0:
    print("zero")
else:
    print("no")

What is printed?

1. yes
2. zero
3. no
4. nothing

Q4 · For-loop with range

for i in range(2, 10, 3):
    print(i, end=" ")

What is printed?

1. 2 5 8
2. 2 5 8 11
3. 3 6 9
4. 2 3 5 8

Q5 · Lists and slicing

lst = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
print(lst[-2:])

What is printed?

1. [4, 5]
2. [5, 4]
3. [3, 4, 5]
4. [1, 2, 3]

Q6 · Dict access

d = {"a": 1, "b": 2}
print(d.get("c", 0) + d.get("a"))

What is printed?

1. 1
2. 0
3. 3
4. KeyError

Q7 · Functions and scope

x = 10

def f():
    x = 20
    return x

print(f(), x)

What is printed?

1. 20 10
2. 20 20
3. 10 10
4. 10 20

Q8 · Tuples

t = (1, 2, 3)
t[1] = 5

What happens?

1. t becomes (1, 5, 3)
2. SyntaxError
3. TypeError
4. t becomes (5, 5, 5)

Q9 · Exceptions

try:
    x = int("hello")
except ValueError:
    print("bad")
except Exception:
    print("other")
else:
    print("ok")
finally:
    print("done")

What does it print?

1. bad
2. bad / other / done
3. bad / done
4. bad / ok / done

Q10 · List comprehension

nums = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
result = [n * 2 for n in nums if n % 2 == 1]
print(result)

What is printed?

1. [2, 4, 6, 8, 10]
2. [2, 6, 10]
3. [1, 3, 5]
4. [4, 8]

Tally your score

8/10 or higher: you're ready for the real exam. 6-7: review weak topics, retake in a week. ≤ 5: spend a fortnight on the lessons in the area you missed most.

For every question you missed, work out what to review:

Q  Topic                          If you missed it, revisit…

1  Operator precedence            PY-L1-04 (operators)
2  Type concatenation             PY-L1-05 (strings)
3  Truthiness, if/elif            PY-L1-08, PY-L1-09
4  range(start, stop, step)       PY-L1-13
5  List slicing                   PY-L1-18
6  dict.get with default          PY-L2-05
7  Local vs global scope          PY-L1-27, PY-L1-29
8  Tuple immutability             PY-L2-03
9  try/except/else/finally        PY-L2-28
10 List comprehensions            PY-L2-02, PY-L3-21

If a single topic gave you trouble, work back through the linked lesson and redo its homework. If two or three were related, you may have a category gap — spend a half-hour redoing that whole section.

If you scored 7+ on the mock, you can sit the exam now. If not:

Day  Focus

1-2  Revisit each lesson where you missed a mock question.
     Redo its homework from scratch (don't peek).

3-4  Solve 20 small Python puzzles. Reach for Codewars or
     LeetCode "easy" — 8kyu or 7kyu / Easy difficulty.
     Aim for one in under 5 minutes.

5    Practice another 10-question mock from PythonInstitute.org.
     Time yourself.

6-7  Walk through Python's official tutorial (docs.python.org/tutorial).
     Especially the chapters on data structures, functions, errors.

8    Take a free practice test from Python Institute. They publish them.

9-10 Re-do areas where the practice test caught you.

11   Schedule your exam. Pick a weekend morning.

12-13  Light review. Don't cram. Sleep well.

14   Exam day. Read each question twice. Don't second-guess.
     You know this stuff. You wrote a Dungeon RPG yesterday.

• pythoninstitute.org — exam syllabus, sample tests, official scheduling.
• docs.python.org/tutorial — the canonical reference. Chapters 3-9 cover the PCEP scope.
• codewars.com — small Python challenges by difficulty (kyu). Great for sharpening.
• leetcode.com — pick the "easy" category, Python language, 30+ problems.

One hundred and forty-four lessons across three levels. From print("hello") in PY-L1-01 to a complete dungeon RPG in PY-L3-47. You can now:

• Write Python that solves real problems.
• Design class hierarchies with inheritance and polymorphism.
• Compose generators into lazy pipelines.
• Think recursively.
• Pick the right algorithm for the input size.
• Build and persist data structures.
• Sit a real entry-level Python certification.

Level 4 is waiting whenever you're ready — JSON, CSV, REST APIs, SQL & SQLite, pandas, matplotlib, Flask + auth. Each lesson moves you closer to job-shaped skills.

But take a breath first. You earned it.

Final word
The goal isn't to memorise Python. The goal is to think clearly about problems and turn that thinking into working code. Three levels in, you can do both. See you in Level 4.