Maslow's hierarchy is usually drawn as a pyramid in which each level must be satisfied before the next is pursued. Maslow himself denied this. Why does the strict version fail as a description of what people do?

C. Because people routinely pursue higher needs while lower ones go unmet.

The rigid pyramid is largely an artefact of how the theory got illustrated; Maslow's claim is about typical potency and he allowed reversals explicitly. What survives is worth keeping, unmet basic needs crowd out attention, which is one reason a hungry child learns less. That is a claim about pull, not about locked doors.