Which statement best describes tachypnea?

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Tachypnea is an increased rate of breathing. The defining feature is how fast you’re breathing, not how deep each breath is. In adults, normal resting breathing is about 12–20 breaths per minute; when breaths occur more rapidly than that, it’s tachypnea. The depth of breathing can be normal or shallow, so tachypnea isn’t about shallow breaths itself. The other patterns describe different things: slow breathing is bradypnea, irregular breathing refers to an inconsistent rhythm, and shallow breathing describes reduced depth. So rapid breathing best describes tachypnea.