Efficiency in Guidewire performance relies heavily on the "Database-First" principle. To fulfill the requirement of filtering notes by bothClaimandTopicspecifically on the database, a new query must be constructed using theQuery API.

Option C is the only correct answer because it uses the .compare() method to apply two specific filters:

Topic Filter:It filters for the specific typecode TC_DENIAL.

Claim Filter:It links the query to the specific claim object found in the previous step.

By setting these parametersbeforecalling .select(), Guidewire generates a single SQL statement: SELECT * FROM cc_note WHERE topic = 'denial' AND claimid = .... The database performs the heavy lifting and returns only the relevant records.

Options A and B areanti-patterns. They fetch all notes (Option B) or execute a broad query (Option A) and then use the Gosu .where() method to filter in the application server's memory. This is highly inefficient. Option D is incomplete as it would returneverydenial note in the entire system, regardless of which claim it belongs to.