To answer this question, we need to understand the purpose and behavior of the continue statement in programming.
The continue statement is used within loops to skip the remaining code within the current iteration and move on to the next iteration of the loop. It is often used in conditional statements to skip certain iterations based on a specific condition.
Let's go through each option to understand why it is correct or incorrect:
Option A) the return 0; statement - This option is incorrect. The continue statement does not cause execution to skip to the return statement. Instead, it only affects the flow within the loop.
Option B) the first statement after the loop - This option is incorrect. The continue statement does not cause execution to skip to the first statement after the loop. It only affects the flow within the loop itself.
Option C) the statement following the continue statement - This option is incorrect. The continue statement does not cause execution to skip to the statement immediately after it. Instead, it only affects the flow within the loop.
Option D) the next iteration of the loop - This option is correct. The continue statement causes execution to skip to the next iteration of the loop, ignoring the remaining code within the current iteration.
Therefore, the correct answer is D. The continue statement causes execution to skip to the next iteration of the loop.