Which of the following is true about remedial teaching?

Remedial teaching is a corrective instructional strategy within the assessment-diagnosis-remediation cycle: once diagnostic assessment identifies specific gaps in a student's learning, remedial teaching is the targeted instructional support -- re-teaching key ideas, adapting methods and pace, giving structured practice -- designed to close those gaps and raise the student's academic performance. It is instruction aimed at the cause of underperformance, not an emotional gesture, a change to recorded marks, or enrichment aimed at developing a learner's advanced potential rather than closing a performance gap.

Applying this definition to the statements offered: only "Providing support to improve performance" describes an instructional intervention whose explicit purpose is to raise a learner's performance -- this is exactly what remedial teaching means.

Contrasting the remaining statements by their own content:

• "Showing sympathy to backward students" expresses an emotional/affective attitude; remedial teaching requires a structured instructional response, not sympathy alone.

• "Providing extra marks to improve performance" changes the recorded score rather than the student's learning, so it does not address the underlying gap that caused underperformance.

• "Giving extra attention to gifted children" describes enrichment provided to learners identified as gifted (i.e. high-potential/high-ability) -- a provision serving a different educational purpose (developing advanced potential) than remedial teaching's purpose of closing a performance gap; it is not conditioned on a learner currently underperforming.

Hence "Providing support to improve performance" is the true statement about remedial teaching.