How is Assembly language best described?

Assembly language is a low-level programming language that provides a close representation of a computer’s machine code, making it suitable for hardware programming. It serves as an intermediary between machine code and higher-level programming languages, allowing direct manipulation of hardware resources and memory addresses. This proximity to the machine architecture enables efficient execution of programs, as it allows for precise control over system resources.

The other choices do not accurately describe Assembly language. High-level languages are designed to be more abstract and user-friendly, focusing on simplifying programming tasks, while Assembly is inherently low-level. The idea that Assembly language does not require compilation is misleading; while it can be interpreted or assembled directly into machine code, it still usually undergoes a compilation or assembly process to convert it into a form the machine can execute. Lastly, Assembly language is not a markup language; markup languages are designed for structuring and formatting text, rather than for programming logic and functionality.