Game — Quiz Engine, Part 1

By the end of this lesson you can:

• Write a function that mixes input() and a parameter — ask_question(prompt, answer).
• Clean the user's reply the same way you clean the correct answer, so capital letters and spaces don't spoil a match.
• Reuse the same function in three calls to run a tiny three-question quiz, with no copy-pasted logic.

Without functions, a three-question quiz would look something like this:

a1 = input("What is the capital of Malaysia? ")
if a1.strip().lower() == "kuala lumpur":
    print("Correct!")
else:
    print("Wrong.")

a2 = input("What is 7 * 8? ")
if a2.strip().lower() == "56":
    print("Correct!")
else:
    print("Wrong.")

a3 = input("What is the chemical symbol for water? ")
if a3.strip().lower() == "h2o":
    print("Correct!")
else:
    print("Wrong.")

Look at that. The same four lines, copy-pasted three times, with only the prompt and the right answer changing. Anything copy-pasted like that is screaming to be put inside a function. Today we do exactly that.

Spot what changes vs what stays

From the warm-up, two things change per question — the prompt and the right answer. Everything else is identical. Those two become the parameters:

def ask_question(prompt, answer):
    reply = input(prompt).strip().lower()
    if reply == answer.strip().lower():
        print("Correct!")
        return True
    else:
        print("Wrong.")
        return False

Read it line by line:

• input(prompt) — the parameter prompt becomes the question text on screen.
• .strip().lower() on both sides — same hygiene from PY-L1-23. The player can type " Kuala Lumpur " and it still matches.
• If they match, print("Correct!") and return True. Otherwise print("Wrong.") and return False.

Two jobs in one function — fine for a game

In PY-L1-29 we said "one job per function" — compute or display, not both. For a game like this, the function's job is the whole exchange (ask, judge, react), so doing both print and return is reasonable. The return value is for the rest of the program (a score counter); the prints are for the player.

Call it three times

Now the whole quiz is three lines:

ask_question("What is the capital of Malaysia? ", "Kuala Lumpur")
ask_question("What is 7 * 8? ", "56")
ask_question("What is the chemical symbol for water? ", "H2O")

One function body, three different quizzes. Want to add a fourth question? Add one line. Want to change the "Wrong." message to "Not quite!"? Change it once and all three calls update.

Why we still return a boolean

Even if we don't use the return value right now, returning True or False sets us up for Part 2. Next lesson the main program will look something like:

score = 0
if ask_question("...", "..."):
    score = score + 1

The boolean drops straight into an if, exactly like is_even from PY-L1-30. Today we just don't use it yet.

Clean both sides the same way

Critical detail. If you only clean the user's reply but not the correct answer, "Kuala Lumpur" won't match "kuala lumpur". Always apply the same chain to both:

reply.strip().lower() == answer.strip().lower()

The teacher can write the answer in any case in the call site; the function takes care of normalising it.

The full file

Save as quiz_engine.py:

Code

# quiz_engine.py — Part 1: ask, judge, react

def ask_question(prompt, answer):
    reply = input(prompt).strip().lower()
    if reply == answer.strip().lower():
        print("✅ Correct!")
        return True
    else:
        print("❌ Wrong. The answer was:", answer)
        return False

# main program
print("Welcome to the Hub Quiz!")
print("Answer the three questions below.")
print("-" * 40)

ask_question("Q1. Capital of Malaysia? ", "Kuala Lumpur")
ask_question("Q2. 7 × 8? ", "56")
ask_question("Q3. Chemical symbol for water? ", "H2O")

print("-" * 40)
print("Quiz finished. (Scoring comes in Part 2!)")

Sample run · a player who knows their stuff

Welcome to the Hub Quiz!
Answer the three questions below.
----------------------------------------
Q1. Capital of Malaysia? kuala lumpur
✅ Correct!
Q2. 7 × 8? 56
✅ Correct!
Q3. Chemical symbol for water? H2O
✅ Correct!
----------------------------------------
Quiz finished. (Scoring comes in Part 2!)

Sample run · a sloppy typer

Q1. Capital of Malaysia?    KUALA LUMPUR
✅ Correct!

The capitals and extra spaces don't matter — the function cleaned them. That's the same .strip().lower() hygiene from PY-L1-23, just packaged inside a reusable function now.

One quiz, three lines of main program

Look at the three ask_question calls. Each one is a complete question + judgement + reaction, and the entire main program reads like a list of questions. That is the function payoff — your script reads like the thing it does.

Three tasks. Build the engine, then customise it.

def ask_question(prompt, answer):
    reply = input(prompt).strip().lower()
    if reply == answer.strip().lower():
        print("✅ Correct!")
        return True
    else:
        print("❌ Wrong. The answer was:", answer)
        return False

ask_question("What is the largest planet in our solar system? ", "Jupiter")

ask_question("Which player has the most Ballon d'Ors? ", "Messi")
ask_question("Which group sang Dynamite? ", "BTS")
ask_question("Which dinosaur had three horns? ", "Triceratops")

got_it = ask_question("What is the capital of Japan? ", "Tokyo")

if got_it:
    print("You got it right!")
else:
    print("Try again next time.")

The Quiz Engine is built around one function — ask_question(prompt, answer) — that takes a question and the right answer, runs the whole exchange, and returns True or False. Once that function exists, the main program collapses into a list of question lines, and everything important happens in one carefully-tested place. The cleaning chain from PY-L1-23 (.strip().lower()) lives inside the function so every caller automatically gets case-insensitive, whitespace-tolerant judging. Next lesson we wrap these calls in a score counter, add encouragement, and print a percentage at the end.