What is the purpose of the await keyword in asynchronous programming?

The correct answer is Option B: To pause a coroutine's execution.
In asynchronous programming in Python, the await keyword is used to pause the execution of a coroutine until a certain condition is met or until another coroutine completes its execution. When the await keyword is encountered within an asynchronous function or coroutine, it suspends the execution of that coroutine and allows other tasks to run concurrently. This non-blocking behavior enables asynchronous code to perform I/O-bound operations efficiently without blocking the event loop, improving overall performance and responsiveness of the application.