Zachary Hart, the code you provided will provide the lowest/bottom 8 values, not the highest/top.
>>> l = [1,4,5,3,7,8,6,9,2,0]
>>> sorted(l)[:8]
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
>>>
To get the last eight items in your sorted list:
>>> l = [1,4,5,3,7,8,6,9,2,0]
>>> sorted(l)[-8:]
[2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
>>>
Or, I suggest using reverse=True with sorted:
>>> l = [1,4,5,3,7,8,6,9,2,0]
>>> sorted(l, reverse=True)[:8]
[9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2]
>>>