What characteristic specifically describes interpreted languages?

Interpreted languages are specifically characterized by their ability to execute code one statement at a time. This means that, rather than compiling the entire program into machine code before execution, an interpreter reads and executes the code line by line in real-time. This allows for greater flexibility during development, as programmers can test and debug code incrementally without needing to compile the entire program.

In contrast, compiled languages require the entire source code to be transformed into machine code before any part of the program can be executed. The immediate feedback provided by interpreted languages can significantly streamline the coding process and is one of the reasons they are often favored in educational settings and for rapid application development.

The other options do not accurately describe the hallmark of interpreted languages: pseudocode is not an actual programming language but a way of expressing algorithms in a human-readable format; the set of functions and objects is common to many programming paradigms and not exclusive to interpreted languages; converting code to binary (0's and 1's) is the process of compilation, which is characteristic of compiled languages rather than interpreted ones.