5.29. Group Work: Functions and Lists

It is best to use a POGIL approach with the following. In POGIL students work in groups on activities and each member has an assigned role. For more information see https://cspogil.org/Home.

Note

If you work in a group, have only one member of the group fill in the answers on this page. You will be able to share your answers with the group at the bottom of the page.

Learning Objectives

Students will know and be able to do the following.

Content Objectives:

Process Objectives:

5.29.1. List Indexing

A list holds items in order and you can get the value at an index, just like you can with strings.

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Q-7: Describe in your own words how negative indices work.

5.29.2. Built-in Functions That Work on Lists

There are several built-in functions in Python that work on lists.

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Write a function avg_with_drop that takes a list, num_list and returns the average of the values in the list, but it does not include the highest or lowest value in the average. For example, avg_with_drop([1,2,3,4]) should return 2.5.

5.29.3. List Methods

Lists are objects of the list class and have methods that operate on list objects.

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Note

Lists are mutable (changeable). List methods like append and pop change the current list.

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5.29.4. Using the Slice Operator

You can use the slice operator[n:m] with lists to get a new list just like you can with strings.

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Note

The slice operator always returns a new object. It doesn’t change the current object (list or string).

Write a function first_half that takes a list and returns a new list (use the slice operator) with just the items from the first half of the original list. For example, first_half([1,2,3,4]) would return [1, 2] and first_half([7,8,9]) should return [7].

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