Week 2 Class 2

Student Worksheet
Before you read

A. Predicting

Look at the Word Cloud of the most frequent words in the text you
are going to read. Based on the vocabulary, can you predict what the text is
about?
If you do not know the words, use a dictionary.

Keywords

Which words do you:

1. know, can pronounce and can use in a sentence?
 2. Do not know and have to look up in a dictionary?

Check the dictionary and write down the words you do not know. You will
need to later when you read the text.

B. Skimming

Skim the text and match the headings with the sections.

Section 1 _________ A. Additional types supported by Python

Section 2 _________ B. An Informal Introduction to Python

Section 2.1 _________ C. Using Python as a Calculator

Section 3 _________ D. Numbers

II. While you read
You are going to read an article about coding in Python and numbers.
Before you read, decide whether the statements below are ‘T’ (true) or ‘F’
(false). Then read the text on the next page to confirm or correct your
answers.

True False
1. Comments in Python start with a #.

2. A comment can appear inside a string literal.

3. The expression syntax in Python is similar to other
languages because it uses similar symbols.
4. There are 2 types of integer numbers: Int and float.
5. Python only supports int and float numbers.

Section 1.
_________________________________
___
In the following examples, input and output are distinguished by the presence
or absence of prompts (>>> and …): to repeat the example, you must type
everything after the prompt, when the prompt appears; lines that do not begin
with a prompt are output from the interpreter. Note that a secondary prompt
on a line by itself in an example means you must type a blank line; this is used
to end a multi-line command.

Many of the examples in this manual, even those entered at the interactive
prompt, include comments. Comments in Python start with the hash
character, #, and extend to the end of the physical line. A comment may
appear at the start of a line or following whitespace or code, but not within a
string literal. A hash character within a string literal is just a hash character.
Since comments are to clarify code and are not interpreted by Python, they
may be omitted when typing in examples.
Some examples:

# this is the first comment

spam = 1 # and this is the second comment
# ... and now a third!
text = "# This is not a comment because it's inside quotes."

Section 2.
_________________________
Let’s try some simple Python commands. Start the interpreter and wait for the
primary prompt, >>>. (It shouldn’t take long.)

Section 2.1
_________________________
The interpreter acts as a simple calculator: you can type an expression at it and
it will write the value. Expression syntax is straightforward: the operators +, -
, * and / work just like in most other languages (for example, Pascal or C);
parentheses (()) can be used for grouping. For example:
>>>
>>> 2 + 2
4
>>> 50 - 5*6
20
>>> (50 - 5*6) / 4
5.0
>>> 8 / 5 # division always returns a floating point number
1.6

The integer numbers (e.g. 2, 4, 20) have type int, the ones with a fractional
part (e.g. 5.0, 1.6) have type float. We will see more about numeric types later
in the tutorial.
Division (/) always returns a float. To do floor division and get an integer result
(discarding any fractional result) you can use the // operator; to calculate the
remainder you can use %:
>>>
>>> 17 / 3 # classic division returns a float
5.666666666666667
>>>
>>> 17 // 3 # floor division discards the fractional part
5
>>> 17 % 3 # the % operator returns the remainder of the
division
2
>>> 5 * 3 + 2 # result * divisor + remainder
17

With Python, it is possible to use the ** operator to calculate powers 1:

>>>
>>> 5 ** 2 # 5 squared
25
>>> 2 ** 7 # 2 to the power of 7
128

The equal sign (=) is used to assign a value to a variable. Afterwards, no result
is displayed before the next interactive prompt:
>>>
>>> width = 20
>>> height = 5 * 9
>>> width * height
900

If a variable is not “defined” (assigned a value), trying to use it will give you an
error:
>>>
>>> n # try to access an undefined variable
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'n' is not defined
There is full support for floating point; operators with mixed type operands
convert the integer operand to floating point:

>>>
>>> 4 * 3.75 - 1
14.0

In interactive mode, the last printed expression is assigned to the variable _.

This means that when you are using Python as a desk calculator, it is somewhat
easier to continue calculations, for example:
>>>
>>> tax = 12.5 / 100
>>> price = 100.50
>>> price * tax
12.5625
>>> price + _
113.0625
>>> round(_, 2)
113.06

This variable should be treated as read-only by the user. Don’t explicitly assign
a value to it — you would create an independent local variable with the same
name masking the built-in variable with its magic behavior.

Section 3. ______________________________

In addition to int and float, Python supports other types of numbers, such
as Decimal and Fraction. Python also has built-in support for complex
numbers, and uses the j or J suffix to indicate the imaginary part (e.g. 3+5j).

III. After you read

 A. Vocabulary

1. The Word Cloud below show the most frequent verbs in the text. Find
them and highlight them in the text. Do you know what they mean? If
not, look them up in a dictionary.

https://www.wordreference.com/

2. Common Adjectives in Python language

In Python literature, it is common to find adjectives. Look at the word cloud

below. Do you know all these adjectives?
Adjectives usually go with nouns and form collocations: 2 or 3 words that
usually go together. Here are some common collocations with the adjectives
from the Cloud. Write your own definition for each one. You can ask your
coding instructor to help you.

Collocation Definition/translation

Floating point
Interactive prompt
Fractional part
Primary prompt

Some of the adjectives can also be nouns. Check the following words in the
text and decide if they are adjective- describen algo, or they are noun-
denominan un objeto o una persona.

Word Adjective or Noun? What does it mean?

Variable
prompt
Decimal
Tutorial

3. Prepositions and connectors

In your class, you learnt some prepositions to talk about place and time. The
prepositions in the Word Cloud below are used in the text. Find them and
organize them in the table below based on what they express in the text. You
can also add your own category.
Time

Place

Sequence

Company

Comparison

Add your
category

Add your
category