Foundations-of-Computer-Science Exam Dumps : WGU Foundations of Computer Science

Python slicing uses the notation sequence[start:stop], where start is inclusive and stop is exclusive. When start is omitted, it defaults to 0, meaning the slice starts from the beginning of the sequence. Therefore, fam[:3] is equivalent to fam[0:3]. Because the stop index 3 is excluded, the slice includes elements at indices 0, 1, and 2—exactly the first three elements.

This convention is emphasized in programming textbooks because it makes many tasks natural and reduces boundary errors. For example, “take the first n items” is written as [:n], and “drop the first n items” is written as [n:]. The length of the slice is also easy to reason about: with step 1, it is stop - start, so here it is 3 - 0 = 3.

Option B is incorrect because including four elements would require fam[:4]. Option C would correspond to fam[:2]. Option D describes taking elements from the end, which would use negative indexing such as fam[-3:].

Slicing is widely used for batching, windowing in algorithms, splitting datasets into training/testing segments, and extracting prefixes in parsing tasks. Understanding the inclusive start and exclusive stop rule is essential for correct Python programming.

Python slicing follows the rule `sequence[start:stop]`, where the `start` index is **inclusive** and the `stop` index is **exclusive**. This convention is taught widely because it makes many algorithms and boundary cases simpler: the length of the slice is `stop - start` (when step is 1), and adjacent slices can partition a sequence without overlap. For a list named `fam`, the slice `fam[3:6]` starts at index 3 and includes the elements at indices 3, 4, and 5, but it stops before index 6.

This is a frequent source of off-by-one errors for beginners, so textbooks emphasize remembering: “start is included, stop is not.” If `fam` had at least 6 elements, then `fam[3:6]` would produce a new list of exactly three elements (positions 3, 4, 5). If `fam` had fewer than 6 elements, Python would still return a valid slice up to the end without raising an error, because slicing is designed to be safe within bounds.

# Option A is incorrect because it skips index 3 and incorrectly includes index 6. Option B is incorrect because it includes index 6, which the stop boundary excludes. Option D is incorrect because slicing returns a sublist, not a single element; a single element would require indexing like `fam[6]`.

In Python, the standard way to display output to the console is the built-in function print(). When a program performs calculations—such as arithmetic expressions, function results, or computed statistics—print() can be used to show those results to the user. For example, print(2 + 3) displays 5, and print(total / count) displays the computed average. Textbooks introduce print() early because it supports interactive learning, debugging, and communicating program behavior.

print() can display one or multiple items separated by commas, automatically converting them to string form. It also supports formatting via f-strings (e.g., print(f"Sum = {s}")) and optional parameters like sep and end to control output formatting. This makes it versatile for reporting calculated values, intermediate steps in algorithms, and final program outputs.

The other options are not standard Python built-ins for output. compute(), result(), and solve() are not universally defined commands in Python; they might exist as user-defined functions or in specific libraries, but they are not the general command taught in textbooks for displaying results. Python follows a clear separation: expressions compute values; print() displays them.

Therefore, the correct answer is print(), as it is the primary mechanism for producing human-readable output from calculations in typical Python programs and coursework.