Python List Practice Questions & Solutions

Master Python lists with this curated collection of 17 structured practice challenges spanning all essential sequence operations, method behaviors, and algorithmic patterns.

Interactive Practice Problem Set: Each challenge features an interactive solution toggle, syntax-highlighted code, dedicated terminal output, and technical notes. Practice operations across append(), extend(), insert(), remove(), pop(), copy(), sort(), and clear().

Quick Jump Navigation:

Part 1: Initialization & Slicing (Q1-5) Part 2: Mutation & Methods (Q6-10) Part 3: Sorting & Deduplication (Q11-14) Part 4: Reductions & Sets (Q15-17) Interactive Practice FAQ Further Reading

Part 1: Initialization, Indexing & Slicing (Challenges 1 to 5) 🔝

Challenge 1: Declare an empty list and populate it with multiple items.

my_list = []
my_list.append('Alex')
my_list.append('Ronn')
my_list.append('Geek')
print("Populated list:", my_list)

Terminal Output:

Populated list: ['Alex', 'Ronn', 'Geek']

Challenge 2: Mixed data types and element retrieval by index.

mixed = ['Alex', 4, 'Ronn', 6.54]
print("List type:      ", type(mixed))
print("Item at index 2:", mixed[2])

Terminal Output:

List type:       <class 'list'>
Item at index 2: Ronn

Challenge 3: Generate a stepped list using range().

stepped_list = list(range(5, 50, 10))
print("Stepped list:", stepped_list)

Terminal Output:

Stepped list: [5, 15, 25, 35, 45]

Challenge 4: Negative indexing to access trailing elements.

nums = [10, 20, 30, 40, 50]
print("Last item (-1):        ", nums[-1])
print("Second-to-last (-2):   ", nums[-2])

Terminal Output:

Last item (-1):         50
Second-to-last (-2):    40

Challenge 5: Extract sub-slices using slice syntax [start:end].

data = [2, 4, 1, 5, 3, 7]
print("Slice [1:]:  ", data[1:])
print("Slice [2:4]: ", data[2:4])

Terminal Output:

Slice [1:]:   [4, 1, 5, 3, 7]
Slice [2:4]:  [1, 5]

Part 2: Mutation & Method Operations (Challenges 6 to 10) 🔝

Challenge 6: Locating items with index() and testing membership with in.

names = ["Alex", "Ronald", "John", "Sarah"]
target = "John"
if target in names:
    print(f"'{target}' located at index:", names.index(target))

Terminal Output:

'John' located at index: 2

Challenge 7: Inserting at specific index vs. Appending at tail.

queue = ["User1", "User2"]
queue.append("User3")       # Added to end
queue.insert(1, "VIP_User") # Inserted at index 1
print("Updated queue:", queue)

Terminal Output:

Updated queue: ['User1', 'VIP_User', 'User2', 'User3']

Challenge 8: Merging sequences with extend() vs. Nested append().

base = [1, 2]
base.extend([3, 4])
print("After extend():", base)

nested = [1, 2]
nested.append([3, 4])
print("After append():", nested)

Terminal Output:

After extend(): [1, 2, 3, 4]
After append(): [1, 2, [3, 4]]

Challenge 9: Value deletion (remove) vs. Index popping (pop).

items = ["apple", "banana", "cherry", "date"]
items.remove("banana")     # Deletes by matching value
popped = items.pop(1)      # Removes and returns item at index 1
print("Popped item:  ", popped)
print("Remaining list:", items)

Terminal Output:

Popped item:   cherry
Remaining list: ['apple', 'date']

Challenge 10: Shallow cloning with copy() vs. In-place clear().

original = ["a", "b", "c"]
snapshot = original.copy()
original.clear()

print("Original after clear():", original)
print("Preserved snapshot:    ", snapshot)

Terminal Output:

Original after clear(): []
Preserved snapshot:     ['a', 'b', 'c']

Part 3: Counting, Sorting & Deduplication (Challenges 11 to 14) 🔝

Challenge 11: Length inspection with len() and frequency counting with count().

nums = [10, 20, 10, 30, 10, 40]
print("Total length:", len(nums))
print("Count of 10: ", nums.count(10))

Terminal Output:

Total length: 6
Count of 10:  3

Challenge 12: Sequence inversion using list.reverse() in-place.

letters = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']
letters.reverse()
print("Inverted list:", letters)

Terminal Output:

Inverted list: ['d', 'c', 'b', 'a']

Challenge 13: Sorting by custom key (length) in ascending and descending orders.

words = ["Alexander", "Sam", "Christopher", "Jo"]
words.sort(key=len)
print("Ascending by length: ", words)

words.sort(key=len, reverse=True)
print("Descending by length:", words)

Terminal Output:

Ascending by length:  ['Jo', 'Sam', 'Alexander', 'Christopher']
Descending by length: ['Christopher', 'Alexander', 'Sam', 'Jo']

Challenge 14: Deduplicate items while preserving original insertion order.

raw_tags = ["python", "spam", "tutorial", "spam", "coding"]
# dict.fromkeys preserves order in O(N) linear time
unique_tags = list(dict.fromkeys(raw_tags))
print("Deduplicated tags:", unique_tags)

Terminal Output:

Deduplicated tags: ['python', 'spam', 'tutorial', 'coding']

Part 4: Reductions, Conversions & Set Intersections (Challenges 15 to 17) 🔝

Challenge 15: Numeric aggregations: sum(), min(), and max().

scores = [45, 12, 89, 3, 67]
print("Sum:    ", sum(scores))
print("Minimum:", min(scores))
print("Maximum:", max(scores))

Terminal Output:

Sum:     216
Minimum: 3
Maximum: 89

Challenge 16: Splitting strings to character lists and deduplicating.

text = "programming"
char_list = list(text)
unique_chars = list(dict.fromkeys(char_list))
print("Character list:   ", char_list)
print("Deduplicated chars:", unique_chars)

Terminal Output:

Character list:    ['p', 'r', 'o', 'g', 'r', 'a', 'm', 'm', 'i', 'n', 'g']
Deduplicated chars: ['p', 'r', 'o', 'g', 'a', 'm', 'i', 'n']

Challenge 17: Finding common elements between two lists using set intersection.

list_a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
list_b = [3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
common_items = sorted(list(set(list_a) & set(list_b)))
print("Common elements:", common_items)

Terminal Output:

Common elements: [3, 4, 5]

Interactive Notebook & Practice Exercises 🔝

Work through all 17 challenges and self-validating assertions in our companion Jupyter Notebook:

Interactive Companion Jupyter Notebook

Explore interactive code cells for all challenges, test list slicing, benchmark methods, and run self-validating unit assertions.

View on GitHub Run in Google Colab

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 🔝

How do I safely remove an item without errors?

Use if item in my_list: my_list.remove(item) or a try-except ValueError block.

What is the fastest way to deduplicate a list?

list(dict.fromkeys(my_list)) runs in O(N) time and maintains original insertion order.

Python List Practice: 17 Core Challenges with Solutions

Part 1: Initialization, Indexing & Slicing (Challenges 1 to 5) 🔝

Part 2: Mutation & Method Operations (Challenges 6 to 10) 🔝

Part 3: Counting, Sorting & Deduplication (Challenges 11 to 14) 🔝

Part 4: Reductions, Conversions & Set Intersections (Challenges 15 to 17) 🔝

Interactive Notebook & Practice Exercises 🔝

Interactive Companion Jupyter Notebook

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 🔝

How do I safely remove an item without errors?

What is the fastest way to deduplicate a list?

Further Reading & Related Tutorials 🔝

Subhendu Mohapatra