What are the three components of an investigation?

• A. Immediate response, short term, long term
• B. Planning, fieldwork, reporting
• C. Interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence, publishing results
• D. Initial assessment, analysis, closure

Answer: (A)

The question is testing how an investigation is structured in time-based stages: immediate response to secure safety and preserve the scene, short-term actions to gather information and stabilize the situation, and long-term work to analyze findings and finalize the report. This framing emphasizes the progression from rapid containment to information gathering and then to documentation and closure. The option that names these exact stages—immediate response, short term, long term—best fits this progression, since it mirrors how investigators move through time as the situation evolves. The other sequences describe either general process steps, specific tasks, or outputs that don’t capture the full three-stage, time-based flow of an investigation.