(Final answer below)
I'm preparing for an electrician's apprenticeship and am using their study guide for their aptitude test. I'm seeing a pattern forming where some of their questions are just bad, but a couple of those were actually good, and I was misunderstanding things. It has been a learning opportunity.
I chose B for this question, but they say the answer should be C because, loosely speaking, they want you to just count the number of ropes that are supporting the load. However, when I look at this illustration, it appears that there is not even a proper movable pulley here. It looks like it is just a simple fixed pulley system with extra windings for some reason. Except that the lowest pulley seems to be just floating but still wouldn't qualify as a proper movable pulley.
Please help me understand what I'm missing, or confirm that this is a really bad illustration. Thank you!
Edit: I am assuming that one needs a movable pulley to get a mechanical advantage. C does NOT show a movable pulley and therefore is not the correct answer. Right?
Edit 2: Because they don't offer an answer of "D) All pulleys allow for the same amount of WORK", I am assuming that they mean to ask, "Which of the pulleys requires the least amount of FORCE to lift the weight?" Unfortunately, this is meant to be more of an intuitive sort of test, where it appears physics terms might be interchangeable.
Edit 3: I interpret this to be a question about which pulley system offers the most mechanical advantage. Answers that align with this interpretation would be helpful.
Edit 4: I think B is supposed to represent a "gun tackle" arrangement. (Sorry about all the edits!)
Edit 5: Aha! Answer: if you look at the illustration #3 here https://www.theengineeringchoice.org/what-is-pulley/ you can see what they meant to illustrate for C (an actual movable pulley) but did a terrible job of it. Taking that into account, the answer is indeed C.
Answered. Thanks to all who helped. I'm inclined to throw this book away. I'm moving on :)