prep语法笔记 105题的异议 内附详题

Even though it was not illegal for the bank to share its customers' personal financial information with an outside marketing company in return for a commision on sales, the state attorney general accuse the bank of engaging in bank deceptive bussiness practices by failing to horor its promise to its customers to keep records private.

A. by failing to horor its promise to its customers to keep

B. by its failure of hororing its promise to its customers to keep

cde很容易排除，不列。给的答案是a，但我觉得a不妥。我认为by的后面接的动词的主语应该是整个句子的主语the state attorney general ，从逗号之后算起），而把句子谓语bank作为by之后的动作failing的主语是不妥的（而且还省略了），感觉不符合语言习惯。比如，I shoot you by using a gun.很明显，using a gun的主语应该是I，而不是you。

b选项，用its指代bank，明确，避免了上述缺陷。不过，感觉b的问题是its可能被认为指代不明确，虽然从逻辑上可以指代bank ，但从语法上指代the state attorney general也没错，歧义。

大家怎么看~~请教~

个人意见，如果用by+n，一般表示由n来发出这个动作，而by+doing，则表示方式。

楼主你说呢？我的意见，欢迎讨论

hansomecd說的很对。

by + Ving是副词修饰动词，再找动词的出发者

此句the state attorney主词 ...the bank受词，engage是指bank

所以就是讲bank透过(by)来engage in.....