What is the potential effect of a high-resistance ground connection?

• A. It can cause faulty operation due to insufficient return current and poor grounding.
• B. It improves signal quality.
• C. It increases system voltage.
• D. It reduces EMI.

Answer: (A)

A high-resistance grounding path prevents current from returning cleanly to its source. When the ground path is not solid, fault and normal return currents face a large impedance, causing the system to reference grounds inconsistently. This leads to components and circuits not seeing proper ground, so devices can behave unpredictably, protective devices may not sense faults promptly, and chassis or signal references can float. The overall effect is unreliable operation and increased susceptibility to noise and EMI, not improved performance.