Answer: C

Reasoning: Severe aortic stenosis produces marked left-ventricular pressure overload and concentric hypertrophy, giving a sustained, forceful (“heaving”) apical impulse that may be displaced slightly down-and-outward. In contrast, pulsus bisferiens is seen with mixed AR or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the ejection click of AS is early (and often disappears in very severe, calcified disease), and A2 becomes soft rather than loud, making S2 single or faint. [Landefeld, 2022, PMID 35491074; Selzer, 1988, PMID 3402482]