PCAP Strings Practice Question
A programmer has a string 'apple,banana,orange' and wants to get a list ['apple', 'banana', 'orange']. Which method should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
The PCAP exam often tests the confusion between `split()` and `partition()` — candidates mistakenly think `partition()` returns a list of all parts, but it only splits at the first occurrence and returns a tuple, not a list of all comma-separated items.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
s.split(',')
`s.split(',')` splits the string `'apple,banana,orange'` at each comma delimiter, returning a list of substrings: `['apple', 'banana', 'orange']`. This method is designed to break a string into a list based on a specified separator, making it the exact tool for this task.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
s.splitlines()
Why it's wrong here
s.splitlines() is incorrect because it splits the string on line-boundary characters such as '\n', '\r', '\r\n', or '\v', not on commas. If the string contains only comma-separated words and no newline characters, splitlines() returns a list with the entire original string as its only element. It also cannot be called with a comma separator argument, so it will never produce the individual apple/banana/orange pieces.
- ✗
s.partition(',')
Why it's wrong here
s.partition(',') is incorrect because it only divides the string at the first comma and returns a three-element tuple: (head, separator, tail). For 'apple,banana,orange', it returns ('apple', ',', 'banana,orange'), leaving the second comma unprocessed and the result in tuple form rather than a list of all three fruits. To extract every comma-separated field, you need a method that repeats the split, not partition.
- ✗
s.join(',')
Why it's wrong here
s.join(',') is incorrect because str.join() is a method of the separator string and expects an iterable of strings as its argument; calling it on s means s is used as the separator. Here, the argument ',' is just a single-character string, so the result is simply ',' since joining one element with any separator yields that element. Even conceptually, join() is the opposite operation to split() and cannot parse a delimited string into a list; the correct form would be ','.join(...) on a list.
- ✓
s.split(',')
Why this is correct
s.split(',') is correct because str.split() with a specified separator splits the string at every occurrence of that separator and returns a list of the substrings in between, with the separator removed. For the string 'apple,banana,orange', this yields ['apple', 'banana', 'orange'], exactly the three separate fruits the programmer wants. This is the standard built-in method for turning a delimited string into a list of parts.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCAP practice question is part of Courseiva's free Python Institute certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PCAP exam.