Switch Mode power supplies are a __________load

Question

i would like to know the answer to this question out of these four answers passive, linear, nonlinear, and source

Answer 1

Hearing power supplies classified as loads sounds a bit unusual since a load is usually a part of an electrical circuit that consumes power, not supplies power.  Of the choices given, passive and linear seem least likely since Switch Mode power supplies involve transistors that are by definition active components and there definitely is no linear relationship between power in and power out or how their voltage and impedance are related.  Linear power supplies are a distinctly different type of power supply from SMPS altogether.  Any power supply can technically be called a power "source" and a load, and these sound like too generic a term for this type of question and may be a "reasonable sounding" distractor.

 

A commercial reference I found pretty useful to help explain why non-linear seems like the best choice can be found in the third paragraph here:

http://www.mirusinternational.com/downloads/hmt_faq01.pdf