Suppose you live in western Massachusetts and need to get to San Francisco to close a business deal by the following night. Because the only available flights are in Boston, you drive east to Boston in order to catch the first flight to San Francisco that morning. This solution would NOT have been possible if you had exclusively employed a

hill-climbing strategy

Explanation:

Based on the scenario being described within the question it can be said that this would not have been possible if you exclusively employed a hill-climbing strategy. This is a strategy used for problem solving in which the easiest solution is employed first and adjustments are made to the solution as it is be implemented. In this scenario it would increase the travel time and you would never make it to the deal on time.

the assumption the narrator makes in this excerpt is that the messages he heards were going to hurt the narrator's mom; the narrator just springs in to action. the narrator doesn't specify in this excerpt why he believes that the messages present a problem that requires protection.