Final answer:
To abstract and shorten the code provided by the student, a programmer could add a loop, specifically a for loop or a repeat...times loop, which would allow the repetition of instructions without duplicating code lines, thus making the code more concise and maintainable.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's code snippet indicates a sequence of instructions for setting background images and pausing, which is repeated multiple times. To abstract this code and make it shorter in length, a programmer can add a loop. Loops are used to repeat a block of code as many times as needed without having to write the same code over and over again. For example, in the given code, the programmer could use a loop to set the background images and pause instructions inside it. This would repeat those instructions for the specified number of times without having to manually duplicate the lines of code.
One way to implement this would be to determine the repeating pattern in the code and create a loop that executes those repeating lines. For instance, if the background images and pause times are repeating three times with the same values, a for loop or a repeat ... times loop could be used to execute those lines thrice. By doing this, we dramatically reduce the length of the code, making it more readable and easier to maintain.