By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans,

Question

By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans, automobile loans,  financial advice and staying  within the metropolitan areas, Acme Bank has become one of the most profitable savings banks in the nation.

(A) financial advice and staying
(B) financial advice and by staying
(C) and financial advice, staying
(D) and financial advice, and staying
(E) and financial advice and by staying

I understand why it needs "and" before financial advice.

why do we have to include "by" before staying as the E says?

I thought "by" is understood in D, so chose D for simplicity.

sayantanc2k · Accepted Answer

What is problem with D? Consider a simpler example:

By eating healthy and sleeping plenty, I improved my health.

Is the preposition  by  required before the second gerund as well?

To answer this question, let us recollect the  Once in twice out  rule:

The parallel structure here is  X and Y : If we consider the preposition  by  inside the parallel structure, we must use  by  two times. In such case  by  should be used both in X and in Y.

However we could also consider that the preposition  by  is outside the parallel structure. In such case we would use  by  only once. It would cover both X and Y.

This ambiguity often occurs with AND structure because we cannot determine where the parallelism starts, whether the preposition is inside or outside. However, for two-part structures such as NOT ONLY.... BUT ALSO, it is easy to determine whether the preposition is outside or inside and such ambiguity does not occur.

AjiteshArun · Answer

The correct option gives us the following sentence:

By  providing  such services as  ( mortgages ,  home improvement loans ,  automobile loans ,  and   financial advice )  and     by  staying  within the metropolitan areas , Acme Bank has become one of the most profitable savings banks in the nation.

You're right in saying that the second  by  is not necessary, but it helps show that we are looking at the second item of the main list. Otherwise, the reader could read the sentence like this:
 By providing such services as X and Y...  (where X is a list of 4 items)

You'll face this problem in any long sentence, or in any sentence in which there are elements that could confuse the reader. You should err on the side of caution and prefer any option that clarifies what the parallel elements are.

lagomez · Answer

To keep the sentence parallel. "by staying" is not part of the list. By providing.....and by staying..That part is parallel.

bakfed · Answer

I agree with lagomez.

This list contains several items, such as mortgages, homeimprovement loans, automobile loans, and financial service. Then there's a sudden switch in sentence meaning, from providing services to "staying within the metropolitan areas". Since the beginning of the sentence started with "By providing", the sensible construct of this sentence would haev to be "by staying".

silasaaa2 · Answer

we require and before financial advice as it is the last one in the listed items and that leaves us with c,d and e

by staying in choice E is parallel with by statying

so my choice is E

vietmoi999 · Answer

one possible reason is that the distance between "providing" and "staying" is far , so, we need to repeat "by" to make the sentence clear.

I post this question in many places on the internet,but, no one answer properly

WoundedTiger · Answer

Ans is E....

There are 2 lists here

ACME Bank has become one of the most profitable savings banks in the nation.
 List 1 by providing services such as

List 2 : Mortgages, Home Improvement Loans.... and Financial advice (Follows structure w,x,y,and z)

and

List 1 Contd: staying within Metropolitan area

List 1 follows structure X and Y...Where X and Y are 2 things done by by the bank...By Providing and By staying... is parallel here..

ShantnuMathuria · Answer

Could somebody please tell me that why did we use 'and' before financial advice?

Blackbox · Answer

My answer is E too (had to burn time to get to E).

The first "and" is to end the list of items. The second "and" is to start a new clause. "By" is need to keep the second clause in parallel with the first.

baaniNitin · Answer

and financial Services -----last one in the list ------> eliminate A,B
by providing..............and by staying............ --------> Parallel 
IMO E

baaniNitin · Answer

sayantanc2k - yes you are correct we can take BY as common but it does not sounds good to me in this question By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans, automobile loans and financial advice and staying within the metropolitan areas , Acme Bank has become one of the most profitable savings banks in the nation. it looks like a continuation of a list but if we use by staying then AND is used as a conjunction of two sentence Correct me if i am wrong

sayantanc2k · Answer

Hi baaniNitin , If there were 2 sentences, your reasoning would definitely be correct: By providing XXX, Acme bank did YYY , and by staying within ZZZ, Acme bank has become WWW. The preposition by is required before staying in the above sentence. However please observe that there are no 2 sentences. By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans, automobile loans, and financial advice is not a sentence !

The construction is: By providing XXX and (by) staying within YYY, Acme Bank has become ZZZ. The conjunction AND is joining 2 gerunds here. Thus I would say you may or may not use by before staying . In either case the sentence would be correct for the reason (Once out twice in rule) mentioned in my previous post...... for the same reason that By eating healthy and (by) sleeping plenty, I improved my health is correct either way. Do you think I have a flaw in my reasoning?

sleepynut · Answer

Hi all,
I think (D) can be eliminated since the comma before the second "and" is not required.
We only have two items in the second list : providing and staying.

sakshamchhabra · Answer

The parallel structure here is X and Y: If we consider the preposition by inside the parallel structure, we must use by two times. In such case by should be used both in X and in Y.

However we could also consider that the preposition by is outside the parallel structure. In such case we would use by only once. It would cover both X and Y

to quote an example

by eating healthy and sleeping well, I maintain my health.

please help

sakshamchhabra · Answer

Skywalker18

please help with the correct reasoning for eliminating (D)

taking an example : by eating healthy and sleeping well, I maintain my health.

or is it related wrong use of comma in (D)

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Saksham, this example is not similar to the construct in the sentence under consideration.

The sentence under consideration is similar to the following:

By eating apples, oranges, and mangoes and by sleeping well, I maintain my health .

So, at a macro level, the sentence is conveying:

By eating...and by sleeping well, I maintain my health.

So clearly, I maintain my health by doing two things:
i)  By  eating
ia) apples, 
ib) oranges, and 
ic) mangoes

and

ii)  By  sleeping well

If we don't have the  second   by , the sentence would be:

By eating apples, oranges, and mangoes and sleeping well, I maintain my health .

At the very least, there is confusion in interpretation, because the sentence could be interpreted as:

I maintain my health:
i)  By  eating
ia) apples, 
ib) oranges, and 
ic) mangoes and
id) sleeping well

Absurd interpretation, but nonetheless, the construct is not as lucid as it is, if we repeat the  by  second time.

utkarsh0892 · Answer

Could anyone suggest an explanation to the fact that if we put parallel marker after "By",we don't need to consider putting "by" again as given in option "E" that ultimately leaves us with option "d" as a correct answer choice...???

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AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  utkarsh0892 ,

Have you gone through these  two   posts ?

nkshmalik1 · Answer

Hi  AjiteshArun , the mentioned links are not working. I have selected E but the doubt still persists regarding the usage of second 'by'.
Thanks, 
Ankush

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By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans,

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By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans,

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