Rest API MCQ Questions

Send an Accept: application/json header. That is how HTTP content negotiation asks for a response format. Content-Type describes the body you are sending, not the one you want back.

Server-side caching serves repeated requests from stored responses, which reduces load on the servers and databases and speeds up responses.

OAuth is an authorization framework for delegated access: a user lets an application act on their behalf without sharing their password, using scoped tokens.

A JWT claim is a piece of data in the token payload, such as sub (subject), exp (expiry) or a custom value.

OpenID Connect is an identity layer on top of OAuth 2.0: it adds authentication (who the user is) through the ID token.

Cursor-based pagination (next/previous cursors) stays consistent when records are added or removed between requests and scales better than page offsets.

The underlying goal of an API is to share features, data and functionality with other systems in a controlled, reusable way.

OAuth, API keys and username/password are API authentication or authorization methods. Biometrics authenticate a person at a device, not an API client.

OAuth tokens are scoped: each token grants only the permissions the use case needs, and it can expire or be revoked, while an API key usually grants all access.

A refresh token is used to get a new access token when the current one expires, without asking the user to log in again.

REST convention uses a plural collection plus the ID in the path: GET /users/{id}.

GraphQL lets the client ask for exactly the fields it needs in one query, giving flexible queries and responses compared with fixed REST endpoints.

A link relation (rel) describes how the linked resource or action relates to the current one, e.g. self, next or edit.

Exploring an API through links embedded in its responses is hypermedia (HATEOAS).

Time to First Hello World measures how long a new developer takes to make a first successful call with your API, a key developer-experience metric.

OpenAPI (formerly Swagger) is the modern standard for describing REST APIs. WSDL and WADL are older formats, and OAuth is an authorization framework.

SDKs send a User-Agent header with their name and version, which is the most reliable way to track SDK and version usage.