Welcome to the Random Alphabet Challenge! This set of three Python programming challenges is designed to test your problem-solving skills, creativity, and ability to manipulate strings and data structures.
But first let’s see if you can solve the following puzzle:
Coding Challenge #1: Find the Correctly Placed Letter.
You are given a string of 26 uppercase letters, representing a shuffled version of the English alphabet. In this shuffled string, only one letter remains in its correct position (i.e., its position in the alphabet). Your task is to write a Python script that identifies which letter is correctly placed.
Example:
- Input: “IVKOCEPJLTAMZNSYXUWRHFBDGQ”
- Output: “N” (because “N” is the 14th letter of the alphabet and also the 14th letter in the given string)
Python Code
Complete your code using the following online Python IDE:
Suggested Approach
Our recommended approach to solve this challenge is write a Python program to:
- Iterate through each letter in the input string.
- Compare the position of each letter in the string with its position in the alphabet.
- Identify the letter where these positions match.
Testing
See if your code can find the letter in the correct position for the following shuffled alphabets:
Test # | Input Values | Output? |
#1 | SZDABJWLNRITXOUGQHEFPMVCKY | |
#2 | OLMETJKXNGVYRZIWADSHPCQFBU | |
#3 | XMBYCNGRQOVZPFWTJLHKEIUADS |
Coding Challenge #2: Alphabet Shuffling Algorithm
In Stage 1, you wrote a Python script to identify the correctly placed letter in a shuffled alphabet string. Now, in Stage 2, we flip the script: your task is to generate a shuffled alphabet string where only one letter remains in its correct position.
You will need to write a Python program that:
- Generates a random permutation of the 26 uppercase letters of the English alphabet.
- Ensures that only one letter in this permutation is in its correct alphabetical position (e.g., “A” at index 0, “B” at index 1, etc.).
Coding Challenge #3: Quiz Time
This is the final stage of the Random Alphabet Challenge! In Stage 1, you identified the correctly placed letter in a shuffled alphabet. In Stage 2, you generated such a shuffled string. Now, in Stage 3, we combine both to create an interactive 10-round quiz where the player must identify the correctly placed letter in each round. Each correct answer scores one point.
Your Python script will need to:
- Generate 10 shuffled alphabet strings (using your Stage 2 code), each with only one correctly placed letter.
- Present each shuffled string to the user and asks them to identify the correctly placed letter.
- Award one point for each correct answer (you may need to use your code from stage 1 for the computer to identify the correct letter and use this to check if the player’s answer is correct)
- Display the final score at the end.

Solution...
The solution for this challenge is available to full members!Find out how to become a member:
➤ Members' Area