PCAP: Is it worth your attention (in 2023)? (2024)

Introduction

Hi, 👋 I'm happy to greet you here! I'm excited to kick off a series of articles where I'll be sharing my personal journey and experience in preparing for the Certified Associate in Python Programming (PCAP) exam. Along the way, I want to cover all the exam's topics together with examples and explanations to assist others who are embarking on this certification journey, or are only thinking about this.

However, in this very first article I'm going to address the most common questions that frequently pop up in discussions on Reddit, comments on Medium and LinkedIn, regarding the PCAP exam. Where, the way I see it, the most important of them is:

A short answer: yes, it's worth it, but, let's dive right into it a bit deeper!

All of those questions can be allocated to two categories:

1. The questions that usually sound like this: "Why is the PCAP worth my attention?" or "Why should I want to take this exam?", when people ask about advantage or value of having this certification. Almost all of such questions come from people who are just thinking about taking exams, and want to see justifications of why certifications are valuable.
2. The questions regarding the PCAP exam itself, such as its cost, scope etc. Questions of this category come from people who have already taken the decision and want to hit the exam.

Q&A

Since there are a lot of doubters of the certifications' values, I believe it's best to start with the first questions.

What is the advantage of having this certification?

These were found in one of Reddit's discussions and people have given their opinions in the comments.

The PCAP certification offers a multitude of advantages. For myself, I've formulated the following:

• Firstly, it validates my Python skills, making me a more appealing candidate to potential employers. In a competitive job market, certification can set me apart.
• Secondly, it deepens my understanding of Python, which is invaluable for any programming role.
• Lastly, it serves as a foundation for more advanced certifications, highlighting my commitment to professional growth.

In addition, to make it clearer, I will add some specifics:

1. My employer welcomes the earning certificates and takes them into consideration when promoting employees.
2. During my preparation, I've used official materials on edube.org which improved my understanding of some of Python's aspects that were unclear before (e.g., MRO and multiple inheritance).
3. Having the Associate level certificate allows me to aim to the next two of the Professional level (PCPP1 & PCPP2), that I'll use for my further promotion.

I agree with the point that Big tech companies, such as Google, Meta, Apple, rather prioritize hands-on skills and experience, and ignore certification for hiring purposes, but the IT world is not limited to the Big tech. There is an entire world of other companies. Many of these companies are very large in their respective sphere, and some of them are under laws and permanently observed by regulators: banks, financial, pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies, telecoms... and they deservedly will value your certifications.

The tech industry indeed places a significant emphasis on certifications, and for some businesses, in cases when they have deals with contractors, having formal evidence of skills is the easiest and the fastest way to validate them.

It's already a sure thing, the PCAP certainly worth your attention!

What is the PCAP?

At this moment, you would be wondering what the PCAP is, and what it looks like? If it's so, follow to me further.

The best place where the whole information regarding the exam is available is the Python Institute's website: https://pythoninstitute.org/pcap

And instead of a dumb coping and pasting all the points from there, I rather want to extend it with brief examples and clarifications where it's needed.

1. What kind of topics does it cover?

The current active version of the exam is PCAP-31-03.

Its syllabus and the exam itself consist of five sections that are spread in following way:

• Section 1: Modules and Packages: 6 items, Max Score: 12 (12%)
• Section 2: Exceptions: 5 items, Max Score: 14 (14%)
• Section 3: Strings: 8 items, Max Score: 18 (18%)
• Section 4: Object-Oriented Programming: 12 items, Max Score: 34 (34%)
• Section 5: Miscellaneous (List Comprehensions, Lambdas, Closures, and I/O Operations): 9 items, Max Score: 22 (22%)

Under this particular point, it's nice to share free courses (supported officially):

1. What is the cost?

The cost of the pure exam is $295 (USD), but there are other available options like:

• Exam + Retake: $345
• Exam + Retake + Practice Test: $359
• Practice Test: $49

All the options to take this exam can only be purchased as vouchers on Edube, and then, used in the practically only available testing provider: Pearson VUE. Yes, there is also the OpenEDG Testing Service, but it has limited availability.

1. Are there sample questions available?

Across the Internet, various such samples are available, and one of them is the Practice Test that can be bought on Edube.

I've chosen the most expensive voucher that includes the Practice Test, and I would never do it again. Because the Pure Practice Test contains only 40 questions and, in my opinion, doesn't provide experience close to taking a real exam, but it's all up to you.

If you want to get more practical tests, Udemy is one of the best places to have a look at. Funny thing, but while I was writing this text, I found out some sets of questions on Quizlet.com.

From myself, I would discourage you from using dumps in your preparation. All dumps are cheating! If somebody uses them to get a certification, this person won't have a real profit, won't become more self-confident and will devalue the certifications. Please, do not be such a person!

1. What was the hardest question in the test?

This is a tricky question, because it fully depends on you, on your experience, how often and which aspects of Python are difficult for you specifically.

Before, my pain was the multiple inheritance and how Python deals with it, especially the Method Resolution Order (MOR), but I was able to crack it while passing the course.

It also should be said, that many-many exams questions manipulate with our attention and how careful we are. The next couple of instances will help to understand it:

a = 0while a != 0: a -= 1else: a += 1 

What value do you think a will have at the end of this code's execution?

>>> print(a)1 

Because, an else part after while loops will always be executed unless the while loop has been interrupted by a break, even if the while part was skipped.

Or another example:

class ExamA: __c = 0 def __init__(self, a): self.__c = a def get(c): return A.__c * cinstance_a = ExamA(10)instance_a._A__c = 11b = instance_a.get(10) 

What will happen in this case?

If you are familiar with Python's tricks, you've probably noticed that get method returns the product of the class's (non-instance's) __c variable and c provided as an input argument, where the class's variable is equal to 0 and the result should be 0, as well..., but the correct answer is: This code will fail with TypeError, because self was missed in the definition of the get method.

Almost all the time, the exam questions will try to catch you on things like these. This is, from my point of view, is the most annoying feature of the exam questions.

I've seen opinions that this exam is very difficult for some people. I personally tend not to agree, because, for example, AWS's exams (since AWS is really huge and its exams cover almost all the aspects of AWS), or RHEL's exam (a hands-on practical exam, where I've struggled a lot, on SELinux tasks) were for me much harder, hough I've still managed to pass them.

Opportunities for Testers and Data Analysts

The PCAP is not the only one exam that you might be interested in. In 2023 the Python Institute has rolled out two additional certifications that could be even more attractive for you:

Afterword

And there you have it. I hope you found it useful and worth the time you spent on it, if so, please consider sharing it with others.

Stay tuned for more articles where I'll delve deeper into each exam topic with practical examples and detailed explanations.

Happy coding, and best of luck on your learning journey!