built-in functions. Except where mentioned, they have an "associated value"
indicating the detailed cause of the error. This may be a string or a tuple
containing several items of information (e.g., an error code and a string
-explaining the code). The associated value is the second argument to the
-:keyword:`raise` statement. If the exception class is derived from the standard
-root class :exc:`BaseException`, the associated value is present as the
-exception instance's :attr:`args` attribute.
+explaining the code). The associated value is usually passed to the exception
+class's constructor. If the exception class is derived from the standard root
+class :exc:`BaseException`, the associated value is present as the exception
+instance's :attr:`args` attribute.
User code can raise built-in exceptions. This can be used to test an exception
handler or to report an error condition "just like" the situation in which the