figure - variables are like boxes that can hold values in them unlike expressionsstatements are instructions that do not evaluate to any value this is why there' no value displayed on the next line in the interactive shell after spam if you are confused about which instructions are expressions and which are statementsremember that expressions evaluate to single value any other kind of instruction is statement variables store valuesnot expressions for exampleconsider the expression in the statements spam and spam they both evaluate to the end result is the sameboth assignment statements store the value in the variable spam the first time variable is used in an assignment statementpython will create that variable to check what value is in variabletype the variable name into the interactive shellspam spam the expression spam evaluates to the value inside the spam variable you can use variables in expressions try entering the following in the interactive shellspam spam you've set the value of the variable spam to so writing spam is like writing the expression here are the steps of spam being evaluatedspam post questions to