Homework assignments

I'm finding that I really enjoy doing homework assignments when they involve modifying a current file (ie. the assignments with todo's). It's much easier to follow the code that's already there and assess what needs to be done. I find it much more difficult when we have to start from scratch because it just seems like it's much more difficult to wrap my head around what needs to be done. I feel like I learn more with the todo assignments because I'm able to focus on specific parts of an assignment and absorb that part as opposed to having to create a python file from scratch.

One thing I'm currently trying to figure out is how to use an or operand with a string. I keep getting an error everything I try to use "|" with a string. I figured out that my code is correct because I tried it with one string instead of all 5, but if I try to do more then one then I get an error.