You need to create a data structure to hold a collection of elements, where each element has a unique key associated with it. Which Python data structure would you use?

  • Dictionary
  • List
  • Set
  • Tuple
In Python, a dictionary is the appropriate data structure for storing a collection of elements with unique keys. It allows efficient key-based access to elements, making it suitable for tasks like creating a mapping between keys and values.

You need to build a RESTful API with Django that should include filtering, sorting, and pagination functionalities. How would you implement these functionalities efficiently?

  • Manually implement filtering, sorting, and pagination logic in your Django views.
  • Use Django REST framework, which provides built-in features for filtering, sorting, and pagination.
  • Use JavaScript on the client-side for filtering, sorting, and pagination.
  • Use plain Django views without any additional packages.
Django REST framework simplifies the process of building RESTful APIs and includes built-in support for filtering, sorting, and pagination. Manually implementing these features (Option 2) can be error-prone and time-consuming. Option 3 lacks the required features. Option 4 suggests client-side implementation, which may not be efficient or secure.

You have to visualize the frequency distribution of a categorical variable. Which type of plot would you prefer using Matplotlib?

  • Bar Plot
  • Histogram
  • Line Plot
  • Scatter Plot
To visualize the frequency distribution of a categorical variable, a bar plot is commonly used in Matplotlib. Each category is represented by a bar, and the height of the bar corresponds to the frequency or count of that category in the dataset.

You have to develop a Django app that should be able to handle multiple databases. How would you configure the app to work with multiple databases?

  • Create separate Django apps for each database.
  • Define multiple database configurations in Django's settings.py, specifying each database's details and then use database routers to route queries to the appropriate database.
  • Modify the Django source code to support multiple databases.
  • Use a single database configuration for all data to simplify the setup.
In Django, you can configure multiple databases by defining their details in the settings.py file and then using database routers to determine which database to use for specific queries. Option 2 is not suitable for handling multiple databases efficiently. Options 3 and 4 are not recommended approaches.

You have identified a performance issue in a critical section of your Python code. Which Python profiling tool would you use to analyze the execution time of this code section and identify the bottleneck?

  • A. cProfile
  • B. PyCharm Debugger
  • C. print() statements
  • D. PyTest
Profiling tools like cProfile are designed to analyze code performance by measuring execution time and identifying bottlenecks. Option B is a debugger, not a profiler. Option C uses manual print statements, which are not as comprehensive for performance analysis. Option D is a testing framework, not a profiler.

You have developed a machine learning model for a recommendation system. What evaluation metric would you use to assess the quality of the recommended items?

  • Mean Absolute Error (MAE)
  • Mean Average Precision (MAP)
  • Precision-Recall Curve
  • Root Mean Square Error (RMSE)
In recommendation systems, Mean Average Precision (MAP) is a suitable metric. It considers both the precision and recall of the recommendations, providing a balanced view of the model's performance in suggesting relevant items to users. MAE and RMSE are more appropriate for regression tasks.

You have a large Python codebase, and you suspect that some parts of the code are suboptimal and slowing down the application. How would you identify and optimize the performance bottlenecks?

  • a) Profile the code with a profiler like cProfile
  • b) Rewrite the entire codebase from scratch
  • c) Ignore the suboptimal code as it may be too time-consuming to fix
  • d) Add more hardware resources
To identify and optimize performance bottlenecks in a large codebase, you would profile the code using a profiler like cProfile or more specialized tools like line_profiler or Pyflame. Profiling helps pinpoint which parts of the code are consuming the most time and resources. Rewriting the entire codebase is often impractical. Ignoring suboptimal code can lead to scalability and maintainability issues. Adding more hardware resources can help to some extent, but optimizing the code is a more cost-effective solution.

You have a function that must not throw any exceptions, regardless of the input provided. Which control structure would you use to ensure that any exceptions raised are handled gracefully within the function?

  • if-else statement
  • switch statement
  • try-catch block
  • while loop
To ensure that exceptions are handled gracefully within a function, you should use a try-catch block. This structure allows you to catch and handle exceptions, preventing them from propagating and crashing the program.

You have a dataset with a large number of features. How would you use Scikit-learn to select the most important features for model training?

  • Use feature selection techniques like Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) with Scikit-learn's feature selection classes such as RFE or SelectKBest. These methods help identify the most relevant features based on their contribution to model performance.
  • Use Scikit-learn's DecisionTreeClassifier to identify important features, which is not the standard approach for feature selection.
  • Use Scikit-learn's GridSearchCV to perform hyperparameter tuning, which doesn't directly address feature selection.
  • Use Scikit-learn's StandardScaler to scale the features, but this doesn't perform feature selection.
Scikit-learn offers various feature selection techniques, and one of the commonly used methods is Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE), which helps identify and select the most important features for model training.

You are working on a Python project with several modules, and you need to make some global configurations accessible across all modules. How would you achieve this?

  • a) Use global variables
  • b) Use the configparser module
  • c) Use function arguments
  • d) Use environment variables
To make global configurations accessible across multiple modules, it's a good practice to use the configparser module. It allows you to store configuration settings in a separate configuration file and read them from different modules. This promotes modularity and maintainability.

You are tasked with the development of a library where the user’s classes need to be altered after their definition, for additional functionality. How can metaclasses be employed to modify or augment the user-defined classes?

  • Metaclasses can create subclasses of the user's classes and add the desired functionality. Users should inherit from these subclasses to gain the extra functionality.
  • Metaclasses can modify user-defined classes directly by intercepting attribute access and adding functionality on-the-fly.
  • Metaclasses can only be used to alter class attributes, not methods or behavior.
  • Metaclasses cannot be used for this purpose.
Metaclasses can create new classes that inherit from the user's classes and include additional functionality. Users can then inherit from these generated classes to get the desired functionality in their classes.

You are tasked with setting up automated testing for a Python project. How would you approach setting up continuous testing for every code push or pull request?

  • a) Use a version control system (VCS)
  • b) Write unit tests and use a continuous integration (CI) tool like Jenkins
  • c) Manually test code changes before merging
  • d) Set up a web server for code testing
To achieve continuous testing for every code push or pull request, you would write unit tests and integrate them with a CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) tool like Jenkins, Travis CI, or CircleCI. These tools automatically run tests whenever code changes are pushed, ensuring ongoing code quality. Using a VCS is essential but not sufficient for continuous testing. Manual testing and setting up a web server are not methods for continuous testing.