Ravi repairs appliances by testing hypothesis about the cause of the malfunction based on his experiences with the symptoms. He uses—

Heuristics are mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that help in problem-solving based on experience. When Ravi uses his past experiences with symptoms to form hypotheses about the cause of malfunction, he is employing heuristic problem-solving. Unlike algorithms, which guarantee a solution by exhausting all possibilities, heuristics provide quick, experience-based solutions. This approach is efficient but doesn't always guarantee the correct answer.