What data structure in Python stores values in key:value pairs?

The correct choice is a data structure known as a dictionary. In Python, a dictionary is designed to hold data in a key:value pair format, which allows for efficient retrieval, storage, and manipulation of data. Each key in a dictionary must be unique and is associated with a value, meaning that you can look up values quickly using their corresponding keys. This structure is particularly useful because you can store complex data types, such as objects or lists, under a single key, making it versatile for organizing information.

For instance, if you have a dictionary storing information about a person, you could use 'name' as a key paired with the person's name as the value, and similarly, store 'age' and 'location' with respective values. This capability makes dictionaries a powerful tool for tasks that require associative arrays or maps, wherein you need to access data in a non-sequential manner.

In contrast, other data structures like lists, sets, and tuples do not use key:value pairs. Lists store items in an ordered sequence, allowing duplicate values and accessed via index positions; sets store unique values with no specific order and do not allow duplicates; and tuples, like lists, store ordered collections of items, but they are immutable, meaning they cannot be changed