CodeTutor
Python Fundamentals / Lesson 10

Mini Project: Student Grade Book

Combine everything you've learned into a complete program.

python·~30 minutes·Lesson 10 of 12
Combine functions, lists, dictionaries, loops, and conditionalsDesign a program from requirementsParse structured input and produce formatted output
Write and run the code →See the full course

Time to put it all together. You'll build a complete program that reads student data, calculates grades, and prints a summary — using every concept from the course.

What you'll build

A grade book program that:

  1. Reads student names and scores from stdin
  2. Stores them in a dictionary
  3. Calculates the letter grade for each student
  4. Prints a formatted report with class statistics

Instructions

Input format (via the stdin tab):

Alice 92
Bob 78
Charlie 85
Diana 96
Eve 64

Each line has a name and a numeric score, separated by a space.

Expected output:

--- Grade Book ---
Alice:   92 (A)
Bob:     78 (C)
Charlie: 85 (B)
Diana:   96 (A)
Eve:     64 (D)

Class average: 83.0
Highest: Diana (96)
Lowest: Eve (64)
Passing: 5/5

Requirements

  • Write a function letter_grade(score) that returns "A"/"B"/"C"/"D"/"F" (same thresholds as the conditionals lesson).
  • Store students in a dictionary: {name: score}.
  • Use a loop to process each student.
  • Use .get() or dictionary iteration to calculate statistics.
  • Use f-strings with alignment for clean formatting (e.g., f"{name:<8} {score}").

Hints

  • Read lines until input is empty: import sys and use sys.stdin.read().strip().splitlines().
  • Or use a try/except around input() to handle EOF.
  • For the highest/lowest, you can use max() and min() with a key function.
  • Left-align names with f"{name:<8}" — the <8 means left-aligned, 8 characters wide.
  • This is meant to be the hardest lesson — take your time and build it piece by piece.