PCEP exam overview

PCEP-30-03, Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer: what the exam covers and how the modules map to it.

PCEP™ – Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer is the first of the two Python Institute exams in this course. It checks that you can read, trace, complete, and write simple Python programs.

Exam code	PCEP-30-03
Questions	35
Time	50 minutes
Passing score	70%
Valid for	5 years
Blueprint	Version 1.5, revised November 2, 2026

Exam sections

Every objective is worth about one question, so the section weights follow the number of objectives.

Section	Questions	Weight
1. Computer Programming and Python Fundamentals	6	17%
2. Control Flow: Conditional Blocks and Loops	8	23%
3. Data Collections: Lists, Tuples, Sets, Dictionaries, and Strings	9	26%
4. Functions and Exceptions	7	20%
5. File Handling and Module Imports	5	14%
Total	35	100%

Modules

Modules 1 to 14 cover all 35 objectives, in blueprint order. Each module page lists the objectives it covers and the skills the exam checks for each one.

Module	Section	Objectives
Module 1: How Python runs your code	1	1.1.1, 1.2.1
Module 2: Literals and variables	1	1.3.1, 1.3.2
Module 3: Operators, expressions, and console I/O	1	1.4.1, 1.4.2
Module 4: Conditional execution	2	2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.3
Module 5: Loops	2	2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3, 2.2.4, 2.2.5
Module 6: Lists	3	3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3
Module 7: Tuples and sets	3	3.2.1, 3.3.1
Module 8: Dictionaries	3	3.4.1
Module 9: Strings	3	3.5.1, 3.5.2, 3.5.3
Module 10: Defining functions	4	4.1.1, 4.1.2, 4.1.3
Module 11: Flexible arguments and scope	4	4.1.4, 4.1.5
Module 12: Exceptions	4	4.2.1, 4.2.2
Module 13: File handling	5	5.1.1, 5.1.2
Module 14: Modules and imports	5	5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3

The full blueprint is on the Python Institute PCEP-30-03 syllabus page.