Which statement about traffic shaping is true?

Shaping works by buffering and delaying excess traffic to smooth the rate of transmission; it does not minimize data transmission intervals.

NBAR is a deep-packet-inspection classification tool used to identify application traffic; it is not a component of the traffic shaping process.

While shaping does influence transmission patterns, this description is too vague and applies equally to policing and other QoS mechanisms - the defining and testable characteristic of shaping is its specific buffering approach to enforce a rate ceiling on bursts.

Shaping uses a token bucket mechanism to enforce a maximum average transmission rate, queuing packets that exceed the configured rate and releasing them in a controlled stream - effectively capping bursty traffic at the defined ceiling. This buffering behavior is what distinguishes shaping from policing, which discards excess traffic rather than holding and smoothing it.