POC Concurrency & Multithreading

Question 1

What is the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) in Python?

Accepted Answer

A mutex that prevents multiple threads from executing Python bytecodes simultaneously

Answer

The GIL is a mutex in CPython that allows only one thread to execute Python bytecode at a time, even on multi-core processors.

Question 2

Which Python module provides the Thread class for creating and managing threads?

Accepted Answer

threading

Answer

The `threading` module provides the Thread class along with synchronization primitives like Lock, Event, and Semaphore.

Question 3

What is the key difference between threading and multiprocessing in Python?

Accepted Answer

Threading shares memory space; multiprocessing uses separate memory spaces per process

Answer

Threads within a process share the same memory space, while multiprocessing spawns separate processes each with their own memory, bypassing the GIL for true parallelism.

Question 4

Which method must be called to actually start executing a thread after creating a Thread object?

Accepted Answer

thread.start()

Answer

thread.start() initializes the thread and calls run() internally; calling run() directly executes it in the current thread instead of a new one.

Question 5

What does calling thread.join() accomplish in a Python program?

Accepted Answer

Blocks the calling thread until the joined thread finishes execution

Answer

join() causes the calling thread (usually the main thread) to wait until the target thread completes, ensuring orderly execution.

(POC) Python Online Certification Practice Test

(POC) Python Online Certification Practice Test

POC Concurrency & Multithreading