Practice

Python Drills

Short function-writing exercises for a first course in Python. Write the function, press Run to try the examples, and press Submit to check it against hidden tests.

Open a set

Practice sets

Set AThe Lantern FestivalNine functions for a street festival: strings and sorting, loops and recursion, nested boxes, a packing simulation and a file report.3 sections · 9 drills Set BOpen House DayTen functions for a community open day: string checks, sorting, recursion, a numerical method, nested data, a two-barista queue and a class.3 sections · 10 drills Set CThe Night MarketSeven functions for a market that opens at dusk: string building, counting, ranges, grids and a stall map.2 sections · 7 drills Set DThe Tide StationSeven functions for a small coastal weather station: averages, runs, a series, a bisection search and careful parsing.2 sections · 6 drills Set EThe Seed LibrarySeven functions for a community seed library: grouping, sets, rankings, an index and a recursive family tree of plant varieties.2 sections · 6 drills Set FThe Toy RailwaySeven functions and classes for a model railway club: searching a timetable, a platform stack, a signal simulation and a train class with a file loader.2 sections · 6 drills

How it works

Graded by running your code

Your function runs in a real Python interpreter in this browser tab, on a worker thread, so a loop that never ends is stopped after a few seconds instead of freezing the page. The page calls your function with example inputs and compares what comes back with the expected answer. Any correct solution passes, not only the reference one.

Some drills add rules about how the code is written, such as no loops in a recursion drill. Those are checked on the structure of your code. A failing test shows the call, what was expected and what your code produced.

You earn a star for a correct solution and a second for solving it without hints or a worked answer. The tests and reference answers ship with the page, so this is for practice, not assessment. For a free-form Python prompt, use the Scratchpad. The drills are companions to theLearning Python study notes.