REST, JSON, and APIs :Using Python to Access Web Data (Python for Everybody Specialization) Answers 2025

Question 1

Who is credited with the REST approach to web services?

✅ Roy Fielding
❌ Bjarne Stroustrup
❌ Daphne Koller
❌ Vint Cerf
❌ Leonard Kleinrock

Explanation: Roy Fielding introduced REST (Representational State Transfer) in his 2000 Ph.D. dissertation at UC Irvine.

Question 2

What Python library do you have to import to parse and handle JSON?

✅ import json
❌ ElementTree
❌ import re
❌ BeautifulSoup

Explanation: The json module is Python’s built-in library for reading and writing JSON data.

Question 3

What is the method used to parse a string containing JSON data so that you can work with it in Python?

✅ json.loads()
❌ json.read()
❌ json.parse()
❌ json.connect()

Explanation: json.loads() parses a JSON-formatted string into a Python dictionary or list.

Question 4

What kind of variable will you get in Python when the following JSON is parsed?

✅ A list with three items
❌ A dictionary with three key/value pairs
❌ A dictionary with one key/value pair
❌ Three tuples
❌ One tuple

Explanation: JSON arrays ([...]) become Python lists.

Question 5

Which of the following is not true about the service-oriented approach?

✅ An application runs together all in one place
❌ Standards are developed where many pairs of applications must work together
❌ An application makes use of services provided by other applications
❌ Web services and APIs are used to transfer data between applications

Explanation: SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) promotes distributed services, not monolithic apps.

Question 6

Which of these two web service approaches is preferred in most modern service-oriented applications?

✅ REST – Representational State Transfer
❌ SOAP – Simple Object Access Protocol

Explanation: REST is simpler, lighter, and uses standard HTTP, making it the modern default.

Question 7

What library call do you make to append properly encoded parameters to a URL?

✅ urllib.parse.urlencode()
❌ urllib.urlcat()
❌ re.encode()
❌ re.match()

Explanation: urllib.parse.urlencode() safely encodes query parameters (e.g., spaces → %20).

Question 8

What is one advantage of a Service Oriented Architecture?

✅ An application can be developed that makes use of data provided by other organizations
❌ Standalone applications start more quickly
❌ When one part is updated, all parts must be updated

Explanation: SOA allows modular, scalable applications that can integrate data/services from other systems.

Question 9

When accessing API endpoints, what is OAuth typically used for?

✅ Providing security credentials to access the API
❌ Selecting between XML or JSON
❌ Ensuring efficient encoding
❌ Restricting open data

Explanation: OAuth is a standard authorization framework that lets users grant API access securely.

Question 10

What Python package is used to parse XML?

✅ xml.etree.ElementTree
❌ System.Xml.Linq
❌ xml.bind.JAXBContext
❌ DOMDocument

Explanation: xml.etree.ElementTree is Python’s built-in XML parser module.

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