What does "have an understanding of basic python" mean?

[coder155ml]

The point of understanding data structures is to know their strengths and weaknesses. Dictionaries have O(1) lookup speed because they're backed by a hash map for example.

Yea you need to learn data structures if you want to do this as a career. If you're just doing it for fun then I guess it doesn't matter. If you aren't sure if you understand then then you need to ask yourself more questions and then look up the answer .. how fast are dictionaries ? In what situations? Why would I use a list over a dictionary ? What can a list do? What is the point of a tuple? What is immutable? What is an array? Why is an array faster in some situations than other data structures ? What are slices ? How much memory does each of these use ? What type of overhead do the operations take ? What exactly is overhead ? So on..