A GIS analyst has a standalone table that includes the change in population by county...

To visualize population change, the attribute (change in population) must be accessible to the county feature layer’s symbology engine. A Join operation adds the table fields directly to the feature layer’s attribute table based on a common key (county field), making the data available for symbology classification.

Relate creates a temporary relationship but does not merge data for symbology purposes.

Spatial Join is used when spatial relationships are needed; here, the relationship is attribute-based.

Join correctly allows the standalone table values to drive symbology on the spatial features.

Therefore, the correct answer is B.