Can i pull up the dock, swipe the control center & slide over using iPadOS and Apple pencil?

The behaviour that you describe is entirely normal - and is an intentional feature of the iPad User Interface (UI).

Some swipe-gestures are not accessible from the Apple Pencil - such as those from the screen-edge that expose the Dock or Task Switcher, or from the upper left-corner to expose the Control Centre. This is presumed to ensure that the UI operates in a predicable manner, when drawing with the Pencil, near the corners and screen edges.

That said, the Pencil does have trigger gestures of its own - that are not accessible using a finger. For example, with the Pencil you can trigger a screenshot by swiping diagonally towards the centre of the screen from the bottom-left corner of the screen.

I hope this information and clarification is helpful to you.

I’m delighted that I was able to offer some reassurance and hopefully resolve any problems.

You might perhaps have overlooked the iPad User Guide for iPadOS - this being a rich source of information and guidance in using your iPad, iPadOS and Pencil. Here are links to both the online and downloadable versions of the User Guide:

https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/welcome/ipados

https://help.apple.com/epub/ipad/en/

You may also find Apple’s YouTube videos to be helpful in understanding basic operation of the Slide Over and Split View features of iPadOS. From YouTube, just search for the Apple Channel.

I hope this additional guidance is helpful to you.