Which statement describes the active partition?

The statement that describes the active partition is:

“It is used to boot an operating system by default.”

This statement accurately defines an active partition. In the context of disk partitioning, especially with Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning, the active partition is the one that the computer’s BIOS identifies as the partition to boot the operating system from. It is typically marked as ‘active’ in the disk partitioning utility. This designation tells the system’s startup program which partition contains the operating system’s boot loader, which is then used to start the operating system.

The other statements refer to different concepts:

• “It is often used to organize data storage by subdividing it into as many as 23 logical sections.” This statement describes logical drives within an extended partition, not an active partition. An extended partition can be subdivided into multiple logical drives, which can be used for organizing data storage.
• “It is a physical section of a hard disk. It can contain an operating system to boot the system and cannot be subdivided.” This statement describes a primary partition. A primary partition can indeed contain an operating system and be made bootable, but this statement on its own doesn’t specifically denote the active partition used for booting.
• “It is a section of an extended partition on an MBR. It can be used to separate information for administrative purposes.” This statement describes a logical drive within an extended partition, not the active partition. These logical drives are used for organizing and storing data but are not typically used for booting an operating system.