Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of high-level programming languages?

High-level programming languages are designed to be user-friendly and significantly easier for humans to read and write compared to machine language or low-level programming languages. One of the key characteristics of high-level languages is that they provide a level of abstraction from the hardware, allowing developers to write code without needing to understand the specific details of the underlying machine code. This abstraction enables programmers to focus on solving problems rather than dealing with complex hardware-specific issues. Additionally, high-level languages typically enhance productivity for developers by providing rich libraries, frameworks, and features that streamline the coding process.

In contrast, being close to machine language is a characteristic of low-level programming languages, which require an understanding of the machine's architecture and are significantly less readable. Thus, the correct answer identifies a characteristic that does not align with the defining features of high-level languages.