Even though it was not illegal for the bank to share its customers'

Question

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

(A) by failing to honor its promise to its customers to keep

(B) by its failure of honoring its promise to its customers to keep

(C) in its failing to honor its promise to its customers of keeping

(D) because of its failure in honoring its promise to its customers in keeping

(E) because of its failure to honor its promise to its customers of keeping

In this problem, I chose D, but the OA is A. What is wrong with D and what makes option A the ideal answer? What is this question really testing?
I would really appreciate your input to this problem.
thanks

daagh · Accepted Answer

To explain the process of elimination as requested in the title:

1.  By failing to honor  is the right idiom – So B, D, and E are out. 
2. Between A and C , again the idiom ‘ promise of keeping ’ in C is wrong ;  ‘promise to keep’  in A is right

Zarrolou · Answer

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

promise   in / of   keeping  are just not idiomatic=> "promise to its customers to keep" is the correct version. This leaves us with A and B.

a) by failing to honor its promise to its customers to keep
b) by its failure of honoring its promise to its customers to keep

the state's attorney general accused the bank of engaging in deceptive business practices  (how?) by + ing verb. A is correct.
If you want to say "how" a thing happened, in this case "how they did those practices" the construct in A is correct.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem: 
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that the bank engaged in deceptive business practices through the act of failing to honor its promise to its customers to keep records private.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Idioms + Redundancy/Awkwardness

• “promise +infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb” – “to + keep” in this sentence)” is the correct, idiomatic usage.
• “failure + to” and “failure + at” are the correct, idiomatic usage.

A:   Correct.  This answer choice uses the phrase “by its failing”; the construction of this phrase conveys the intended meaning – that the bank engaged in deceptive business practices   through the act of   failing to honor its promise to its customers to keep records private. Further, Option A correctly uses the idiomatic construction “promise +infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb” – “to + keep” in this sentence)”. Moreover, Option A avoids the idiomatic error related to the use of “failure”, seen in Option D, as it does not use the noun “failure”. Additionally, Option A is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

B:  This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “by its failure of honoring”; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that the bank engaged in deceptive business practices through the act of failing to honor its promise to its customers to keep records private.

C:  This answer choice uses the unidiomatic construction “promise + present participle (“verb + ing” – “keeping” in this sentence)”; please remember, “promise +infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb”) is the correct, idiomatic usage. Further, Option C uses the needlessly wordy phrase “in its failing”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D:  This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “because of its failure”; the use of “because” incorrectly implies that the bank engaged in deceptive business practices,   due to   its failure to honor its promise to its customers to keep records private; the intended meaning is that the bank engaged in deceptive business practices   through the act of   failing to honor its promise to its customers to keep records private. Further, Option D incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “failure + in” rather than one of the idiomatic constructions “failure + to” or “failure + at”; please remember, “failure + to” and “failure + at” are the correct, idiomatic usage. “Moreover, Option D incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “promise + present participle (“verb + ing” – “keeping” in this sentence)”; please remember, “promise +infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb”) is the correct, idiomatic usage.

E:  This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “because of its failure”; the use of “because” incorrectly implies that the bank engaged in deceptive business practices,   due to   its failure to honor its promise to its customers to keep records private; the intended meaning is that the bank engaged in deceptive business practices   through the act of   failing to honor its promise to its customers t keep records private. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “failure + in” rather than one of the idiomatic constructions “failure + to” or “failure + at”; please remember, “failure + to” and “failure + at” are the correct, idiomatic usage. “Moreover, Option D incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “promise + present participle (“verb + ing” – “keeping” in this sentence)”; please remember, “promise +infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb”) is the correct, idiomatic usage.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

abhijit_sen · Answer

"To Keep" is correct usage rather than "of keeping" or "in keeping". Moreover A is concise and in active voice.

Choice D is in passive voice (another drawback).

alpha_plus_gamma · Answer

'Promise to' is correct compared to promise in, of 
and A is concise compared to B

So A

GMAT TIGER · Answer

A has no error as it is the most concise and succinct. "failure to" is also a correct idiom.

.

dushver · Answer

In addition to above statements pertaining to the correct usage of infinitive "to keep" vs "keeping" (gerund), introduction of "because" changes the meaning. Try to read back the option D, it would mean "Because the bank failed to keep its promise, it is engaging in deceptive business practices". Using the expression "by failing to honour..." the phrase "deceptive business" is properly qualified.

noboru · Answer

I dont see your point. It would actually be: "Because the bank failed..., the state's attorney general...", which is correct meaning.
Could anybody clarify?
Thanks.

blueseas · Answer

two idioms tested in this:

FAILIURE TO X....and PROMISE TO Y....

moreover you may notice that because of too many pronoun (ITS) and prepositional phrases..all other options are unnecessarily wordy.

aviram · Answer

For people who are confused about the correct answer, look up a concept called the infinitive of purpose. According to that concept, only 'to keep' is correct, so we are down to A and B. B incorrectly uses its failure of honoring.

anirudhsuhag.25 · Answer

Hi Experts,

'the state's attorney general accused the bank of engaging in deceptive business practices by failing to honor its promise to its customers to keep records private.'

In the sentence above, I feel that usage of 'by' had two separate meanings:
1. The state's attorney general accused by failing to honor its promise...
2. The bank engaged in deceptive business practices by failing to honor its promise...

Can you please explain if this is not the case. I have my exam scheduled for day after tomorrow, so a quick response would be very much appreciated.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

anirudhsuhag.25 , both of those interpretations are possible  in theory,  but only the second one makes sense. "Its" cannot refer to the attorney general; we'd need "his" or "her." Even if it could, how can we accuse someone by failing to honor a promise? #2 works because if the bank breaks its promise to customers, it was being deceptive.

Skywalker18 · Answer

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

a) by failing to honor its promise to its customers to keep - Correct

b) by its failure of honoring its promise to its customers to keep - failure of honoring is unidiomatic

c) in its failing to honor its promise to its customers of keeping - incorrect idiom: 'promise of keeping' is wrong

d) because of its failure in honoring its promise to its customers in keeping - change in meaning as explained in E

e) because of its failure to honor its promise to its customers of keeping - incorrect idiom: 'promise of keeping' is wrong ; change in meaning: the correct meaning is what appears in the original sentence, namely, that the failure to honor promises WAS the deceptive business practice. choice e, with its use of 'because', implies that the failure to keep promises LED TO (other) deceptive business practices. remember that you have to interpret words like 'because' very, very literally.

Answer A

Poorvasha · Answer

Hi mikemcgarry , Can you please assist with the POE of this one ? Thanks

MagooshExpert · Answer

Hi Poorvasha ! Carolyn from Magoosh here - I'll step in for Mike

Let's go through the answer choices here: (A): No obvious problem (B): "By its failure" is an incorrect construction here - when we use "by" to refer to an action like this, we need the following word to be a verb, like "by failing". Also, "its failure of honoring" is also incorrect - when we talk about a failure to do something, we need to say "failure TO ...". So here, we would want to say "its failure TO honor". So eliminate B. (C): "In its failing" is, first of all, a bit awkward and excessively wordy. Then, "its promise of keeping" is incorrect - when we talk about a promise to do something, we want to say "promise TO ...". So here, we need to say "promise to keep", not "promise of keeping". Eliminate C. (D): Here we have two errors that have already come up: "failure IN honoring" (should be failure TO honor"), and "promise IN keeping" (should be promise TO keep"). Eliminate D. (E): Again, the issue here is in "failure OF keeping". This should be "failure TO keep". Eliminate E. So our answer is (A)

Does that help? -Carolyn

RastogiSarthak99 · Answer

Imo A because of various parallelism markers with “to”. I nearly picked E but “of keeping” at the end of the sentence felt awkward.

https://gmatclub.com/static/posted_from.png     Posted from    GMAT ToolKit

SchruteDwight · Answer

"because of its failure in honoring" = because NOUN verb-ing (always wrong)

mSKR · Answer

attorney general accused the bank by xxxx – is not it wrong meaning ?
SO I rejected A,B

Wrong meaning :
"In ___ing" means, essentially, "something happens during the process of ___ing

Attorney accused the bank because of bank failure xxx and prefer E over D.

Can you help me to reject E and choose A without idiom concept. 
  AndrewN   AjiteshArun   egmat

anilgmat10 · Answer

can any1 tell how the meaning get changed by using "because of" as it was used in option D & E.

Even though it was not illegal for the bank to share its customers'

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Even though it was not illegal for the bank to share its customers'

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia