Write a Python program to find the highest 2 values in a dictionary.

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Q. Write a Python program to find the highest 2 values in a dictionary.

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Concept understanding — Dictionary Key Access

Dictionary Key Access

Imagine you have a physical address book. Each entry has a name (like "Ravi") and a phone number (like "[PII:phone]"). To find Ravi's number, you don't flip through every page — you look up "Ravi" directly. That name is the key, and the number is the value.

A dictionary in programming is exactly that: a collection of key-value pairs. The key is what you know; the value is what you want to retrieve. Key access is the operation of giving the dictionary a key and getting back the value tied to it.

The Intuition

Think of a real dictionary (the book). You look up a word (the key) to find its definition (the value). You never look up a definition to find the word — that would be backwards. Similarly, in a Python dictionary, you always access values by their keys, never the other way around.

Note

Keys must be unique and immutable (strings, numbers, tuples). Values can be anything — numbers, strings, lists, even other dictionaries.

The Precise Statement

In Python, dictionary key access is done using square brackets [] with the key inside, or the .get() method.

Syntax:

dictionary_name[key]

dictionary_name.get(key, default_value)

Example:

student = {"name": "Anjali", "age": 17, "grade": "A"}
print(student["name"])   # Output: Anjali
print(student.get("age")) # Output: 17

What Happens Under the Hood

When you write student["name"], Python:

Takes the key "name".
Computes its hash (a fixed-size number derived from the key's content).
Uses that hash to jump directly to the memory location where the value "Anjali" is stored.

This is why dictionary access is fast — it doesn't scan through all entries. It's a direct lookup, like using an index in a book's index rather than reading every page.

Watch out

If you use a key that does not exist with square brackets, Python raises a KeyError and your program crashes. The .get() method is safer — it returns None (or a default you provide) instead of crashing.

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Sort the dictionary's values in descending order and take the first two:

marks = {'Amit': 81, 'Bina': 92, 'Charu': 77, 'Divya': 88, 'Esha': 69}
values = sorted(marks.values(), reverse=True)
print("Highest value :", values[0])          # 92
print("Second highest value :", values[1])   # 88
top2 = sorted(marks, key=marks.get, reverse=True)[:2]
print(top2)                                  # ['Bina', 'Divya']

Output:

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sorted(d.values(), reverse=True) puts all values in descending order, so positions 0 and 1 are the two highest; sorting the keys with key=d.get names the students who hold them.

The idea. A dictionary gives us its values as a view via values(). To find the top two we do not need any manual comparison logic — the built-in sorted() with reverse=True arranges them largest-first, and the first two positions are the answer. As a bonus, sorting the keys by their value (key=marks.get) tells us which entries own those top values.

Program:

marks = {'Amit': 81, 'Bina': 92, 'Charu': 77, 'Divya': 88, 'Esha': 69}

values = sorted(marks.values(), reverse=True)   # descending order
print("Highest value :", values[0])
print("Second highest value :", values[1])

top2 = sorted(marks, key=marks.get, reverse=True)[:2]
print("Students holding the highest 2 values:", top2)

Verified output:

Highest value : 92
Second highest value : 88
Students holding the highest 2 values: ['Bina', 'Divya']

Key lines:

sorted(marks.values(), reverse=True) -> [92, 88, 81, 77, 69]; indexes [0] and [1] are the highest and second highest. …

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Q.Write a Python program to find the highest 2 values in a dictionary.

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