The active is preferred to the passive - all other things being equal.

You want to begin with Logic and Grammar. Things like Singular vs Plural, proper timeline (verb tense, misplaced modifiers, etc. Parallelism and proper comparisons come in at this level as well.

The second level of scrutiny is that the clearer and more specific answer is preferred. This is where the pronoun that is vague - such as the use of "he" that could refer to more one person - comes in.

Finally, we want the answer that is more to the point and not redundant. It is at this level that active versus passive really comes in. Passive is usually longer, wordy, and not preferred.

By the way, I would say "I took this CAT under the worst possible conditions" no need for "of." Worst possible is modifying conditions. "Worst conditions possible" would work as well.

I do not think that "reassess" is redundant. It means to assess again, as I am sure that you know.

MoYassen23 wrote:Passive --- This CAT was taken under the worst of possible conditions.

Active --- I took this CAT under the worst of possible conditions.

We should also appreciate why Active is preferred over Passive. In your passive voice construct, it is not clear at all as to who took CAT. The doer of the action is completely concealed. Hence, this is not preferable.

Very true!

That is why I use my "5 categories of Elimination" on sentence correction. Passive voice can be unclear/ not specific and it can also be awkward and wordy. However, I do like to wait until after I have eliminated choices for logic or grammar errors first, since the passive voice could be used in the correct answer if the other choices have more substantial errors. Maybe not the exact example used here...But something like "Taxes are immediately collected by the IRS on all substantial lottery winnings" could easily be part of a correct answer if the other answers have grammar errors, etc.