Certified Associate Python Programmer (PCAP) — Preparation Guidelines and Plan
How I prepare for Associate Level Python Certification Exam in 20 days?
The aim of this article is to share my learning plan regarding the “Associate Python Certification Exam.” By profession, I am a software engineer with 7+ years of experience in full-stack development. I did some of my projects in Python, and my master’s research thesis is also implemented in a Python framework called Django. Similar to Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer (PCEP), PCAP is also part of my 2024 resolution. This certification doesn’t require any prior Python experience. The main objective of this certification is a valuable credential for individuals looking to acquire the skills and knowledge essential to continue to more advanced, more specialized, and higher paying Software Development, Security, Networking, IoT, and engineering roles.
Exam Syllabus:
The exam material is divided into five sections because the final exam is also splitted in to five topics:
Section 1: Modules and Packages
Section 2: Exceptions
Section 3: Strings
Section 4: Object Oriented Programming
Section 5: Miscellaneous (List Comprehensions, Lambdas, Closures, and I/O Operations)
You can find the details of the exam syllabus on the official site: https://pythoninstitute.org/pcap-exam-syllabus
Learning Material:
I did the following course by “Adrian Wiech” on Udemy. This course is extremely good. I recommend you go with this course.
Python PCAP: Become Certified Associate Python Programmer
In addition to the Udemy course, I also go through the course ‘Python Essentials — Part 2(Aligned with PCAP-31–03)’ by OpenEDG. This course is free of cost. You can make an account and start learning the topics. Each topics have further sub-topics and each section have their own quizes and tests.
Preparation Plan:
Here I am sharing my timeline and how I can prepare it. But it may vary with the developer’s prior experience and knowledge about Python programming.
Day 1 to 2: The Udemy course is only 5.5 hours long. As I already mentioned, I have little prior experience in Python, so this course is not too difficult for me. I just completed the course in 2 days. But if you are quite new to the Python programming language, you can spend as much time as you want, and you can watch the complete course twice and solve the module quizzes again. But even if you are a newbie to Python, four days are enough to complete the Udemy course.
Day 3 to 12: These ten days I spend to complete the ‘Python Essentials — Part 2’ by OpenEDG. It’s a 58-hour-long course. You must devote approximately 5.8 hours per day. I personally didn’t go through each topic. I skipped most of the topics and read the summary at the end. I hardly spent 1 hour each day. Also, the quizzes after each topic or module are very important. If you do not get a good score, repeat it again.
Day 13 to 18: In the last 6 days, I mostly solved the exam dumps. It helped me a lot to practice the topic more deeply. I mentioned all the resources below that I used to practice for the exam. Note down your mistakes and topics in which you are not confident.
Day 19: I noted down the topics in which I am little bit weak and on this day I revised those topics .
Day 20: I booked the exam and give it via PearsonVUE exam center. I passed it successfully with a 91% score. Exam fees and further details are explained below.
Exam dumps:
- I subscribed to the channel ‘sthithapragna’ on Youtube, and they have a playlist of videos of quizzes and mock exam questions. I believe it is the same as OpenEDG questions. You can check out the video at the below link: The final exam has some questions that are similar from these videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvls8CHgKWE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tme3Op1_IPk&t=1s - The above-mentioned Udemy course by “Adrian Wiech” also has one mock exam. If you score between 90% and 100%, then I recommend you ready for the exam.
- Cord Mählmann also has a separate Udemy course named “Python Certification Exam PCAP-31–03 — Preparation (2024)” It is a paid practice test course that has six practice exams and cost only 12$. But I have a Udemy business account, so it’s free for me.The final exam has almost same difficulty level questions that are in Practice Exam.
Exam cost:
Following are the exam costs. You can select and pay according to your budget. I personally pay only $359 because I need practice test material as well. If I pay for the exam (295$) and practice test (49$), the price will be 344$. So I decided to pay 359$ to take the complete package of Exam + Retake + Practice Test because 344$ and 359$ don’t have much difference. But it’s totally up to you, and you can decide according to your budget.
USD 295 (Exam)
USD 345 (Exam + Retake)
USD 359 (Exam + Retake + Practice Test)
USD 49 (Practice Test)
Exam format and passing core:
The PCEP-31–03 — Exam is 65 minutes long. The exam consists of 40 multiple-choice questions and multiple-answer questions. The questions are split into the following topics:
- Section 1: Modules and Packages → 6 questions (12% of the total exam score)
- Section 2 : Exceptions → 5 questions (14% of the total exam score)
- Section 3 : Strings → 8 questions (18% of the total exam score)
- Section 4 : Object Oriented Programming → 12 questions (34% of the total exam score)
- Section 5 : Miscellaneous (List Comprehensions, Lambdas, Closures, and I/O Operations) → 9 questions (22% of the total exam score)
The total marks for the exam are 1000. The passing criteria of the exam is 70%, so you need at least 700 out of 1000 to pass the exam. So roughly, you can answer only 12 questions out of 40 wrong.
Where do I give the exam?
You have two options to give the exam:
- Pearson VUE: Authorized Pearson VUE Testing Centers
- Pearson VUE: OnVUE Online Proctoring from Pearson VUE
I gave via Pearson Vue testing center near my house.
What’s next?
After successfully passing the PCAP — Certified Associate in Python Programming, my plan is to prepare for the next level of certification, which is “PCPP1™ — Certified Professional Python Programmer Level 1” I am planning to target it in the next year and it will be part of my 2025 resolution. I hope I will make it. I will write the article on the topic of how I prepared and which resources I used for the PCPP certification once I pass it.
Have any questions?
That’s ALL what I did for the certification. If you have further questions, please feel free to write me on LinkedIn 😊
Reference: https://pythoninstitute.org/pcap
