Project — Trivia Quiz from a Real API

• Fetch 10 multiple-choice questions from Open Trivia DB.
• Shuffle the answers so the correct one isn't always last.
• Decode HTML entities — the API returns " instead of ".
• Track score and save the result to highscores.json.

Try this URL in your browser: https://opentdb.com/api.php?amount=2&type=multiple. You'll see JSON like this:

{
  "response_code": 0,
  "results": [
    {
      "type": "multiple",
      "difficulty": "easy",
      "category": "Science: Computers",
      "question": "What does "HTTP" stand for?",
      "correct_answer": "HyperText Transfer Protocol",
      "incorrect_answers": [
        "Hyper Trade Transit Process",
        "Hyper Tunnel Transmission Protocol",
        "HTML Transit Tunnel Process"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Two things to handle:

• The HTML entity " — needs decoding to ".
• The correct answer is in its own field; you'll merge + shuffle.

Step 1 — Fetch

import requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://opentdb.com/api.php",
    params={"amount": 10, "type": "multiple"},
    timeout=10,
)
r.raise_for_status()
data = r.json()
questions = data["results"]
print(len(questions), "questions fetched")

Step 2 — Decode entities

Use the stdlib html module:

import html
print(html.unescape("What does "HTTP" mean?"))
# → What does "HTTP" mean?

Step 3 — Shuffle answers

import random

answers = q["incorrect_answers"] + [q["correct_answer"]]
random.shuffle(answers)

Step 4 — Ask & score

for letter, ans in zip("ABCD", answers):
    print(f"  {letter}) {html.unescape(ans)}")
choice = input("answer: ").strip().upper()
chosen = answers[ord(choice) - ord("A")] if choice in "ABCD" else None
if chosen == q["correct_answer"]:
    score += 1

Step 5 — Save high score

import json
from pathlib import Path

FILE = Path("highscores.json")
scores = json.loads(FILE.read_text()) if FILE.exists() else []
scores.append({"name": name, "score": score, "out_of": len(questions)})
scores.sort(key=lambda s: s["score"], reverse=True)
FILE.write_text(json.dumps(scores[:10], indent=2))

# trivia.py — full quiz from Open Trivia DB
import html, json, random, requests
from pathlib import Path

SCORE_FILE = Path("highscores.json")
N = 10

def fetch_questions(amount=N):
    r = requests.get(
        "https://opentdb.com/api.php",
        params={"amount": amount, "type": "multiple"},
        timeout=10,
    )
    r.raise_for_status()
    return r.json()["results"]

def ask(q):
    print(f"\n[{q['category']} · {q['difficulty']}]")
    print(html.unescape(q["question"]))
    answers = q["incorrect_answers"] + [q["correct_answer"]]
    random.shuffle(answers)
    for letter, ans in zip("ABCD", answers):
        print(f"  {letter}) {html.unescape(ans)}")
    choice = input("> ").strip().upper()
    if choice not in "ABCD":
        return False
    chosen = answers[ord(choice) - ord("A")]
    return chosen == q["correct_answer"]

def save_score(name, score, total):
    scores = json.loads(SCORE_FILE.read_text()) if SCORE_FILE.exists() else []
    scores.append({"name": name, "score": score, "out_of": total})
    scores.sort(key=lambda s: s["score"], reverse=True)
    SCORE_FILE.write_text(json.dumps(scores[:10], indent=2))
    return scores[:5]

def main():
    name = input("Your name: ").strip() or "Anon"
    print(f"\n🎯 fetching {N} questions...")
    qs = fetch_questions(N)
    score = sum(ask(q) for q in qs)

    print(f"\n=== {name}: {score}/{N} ===")
    top5 = save_score(name, score, N)
    print("\n🏆 leaderboard (top 5)")
    for i, s in enumerate(top5, 1):
        print(f"  {i}. {s['name']:<10} {s['score']}/{s['out_of']}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Sample run

Your name: Aisyah

🎯 fetching 10 questions...

[Science: Computers · easy]
What does "HTTP" stand for?
  A) Hyper Tunnel Transmission Protocol
  B) HTML Transit Tunnel Process
  C) HyperText Transfer Protocol
  D) Hyper Trade Transit Process
> C

... (9 more) ...

=== Aisyah: 7/10 ===

🏆 leaderboard (top 5)
  1. Aisyah     7/10
  2. Mei        6/10
  ...

You combined three skills: API fetch, in-memory transform (shuffle + decode), and persistent storage (JSON leaderboard). That's the shape of dozens of real apps. Notice you didn't write a single new Python feature — you stitched together requests, html, random, json and pathlib into something polished.