Apples and Oranges

The answer is 72 .

By the time the first 4 assignment statements are done, fruit1 = "apples", fruit2 = "apples", and fruit3 = "oranges". Thus fruit2 equals fruit1, and the "print 72" statement gets executed.

# python code start
fruit1 = "apples"
fruit2 = "oranges"
fruit3 = fruit2   # fruit3 = "oranges"
fruit2 = fruit1   # fruit2 = "apples"

if (fruit3 == fruit2):     # False -> "oranges" != "apples"
    print 34
elif (fruit2 == fruit1):  # True -> "apples" == "apples"
    print 72                   #     so this gets executed
elif (fruit3 == fruit1):
    print 9
else:
    print 119

programming is a linear solution. If you'll declare one variable on one line and declare another variable on the latter line, the latest declaration will be the one that prevails. So in this case fruit2="oranges" only applies to line 3 until line 4. After fruit2=fruit1, the variable of fruit2 assumes that of fruit1.