c. assembly language Let's look at the 4 choices and see why they work, or don't work for this question. a. extensible markup language - Otherwise known as XML, this is a markup language that's designed to allow data to be shared between different systems in a portable manner. HTML is a subset of XML. Definitely not machine dependent, so this is the wrong answer. b. structure query language - Otherwise known as SQL, this is a language used in defining queries to a remote or local database. It's intended so that the actual implementation of the database is unknown to the user and allows the user to write database queries in a portable fashion. Also not machine dependent, so this is the wrong answer. c. assembly language - This is a low level language specific to the CPU architecture. A program written for the x86 platform won't run on a 680x0 based machine and visa versa. A program written for SPARC won't run on an x86 machine. Assembly language programs tend to directly manipulate the hardware of the computer directly and are very machine dependent. This is the correct answer. d. high-level language - Some example languages would be C, C++, Basic, Algol, Pascal, etc. High level languages were developed so that programs could be easily moved over to other computers as newer more powerful computers because available. They also abstract details about the hardware so that the programmers don't need to know every single detail about the underlying computer. Purpose is to allow programs to be portable across multiple platforms with minimal to no effort. Not the correct answer.