These are interesting exercises. I would also add that what it means to learn, or begin to learn, a language in general but R in particular could vary widely.

These are interesting exercises. I would also add that what it means to learn, or begin to learn, a language in general but R in particular could vary widely. Some people actually need to learn statistics while they are learning to express those concepts. Some people need to learn idiomatic R. I really didn't think of R as very functional till I took Peng's (excellent) Coursera course. Some people need to get a sense of the libraries available. This is an intro to get some practice in the the classical, original purpose for S, Splus and R: linear algebra operations in R.