5 exercises — practise the causal preposition "by virtue of" with noun phrases and gerunds.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "by virtue of" plus a noun phrase to state a direct consequence of a role?
"By virtue of her role as tech lead, she has final say..." correctly follows the fixed preposition "by virtue of" with a noun phrase. Options B and C wrongly attach a full finite clause after "by virtue". Option D wrongly inserts "the" before "virtue" and drops "of".
2 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "by virtue of" plus a gerund phrase to explain an automatic technical consequence?
"By virtue of being stateless, the service can be scaled horizontally..." correctly follows the preposition with a bare gerund phrase, no subject needed since it refers back to "the service". Option B unnecessarily inserts the subject "it" before the gerund. Option C wrongly attaches a finite clause. Option D wrongly adds "the" before "virtue".
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly distinguishes "by virtue of" (an inherent, near-automatic cause) from "because of" (a more general cause, which can follow a full noun clause of reason)?
"...trusted by virtue of its long track record..., not just because of its recent marketing push" correctly assigns the inherent, structural reason (track record) to "by virtue of" and the more incidental reason (marketing) to "because of". Options B, C, and D merge or scramble the two fixed prepositions.
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "by virtue of" in a sentence about permissions granted automatically from group membership?
"...get read access... by virtue of belonging to the on-call group" correctly follows "by virtue of" with a gerund phrase. Options B and C wrongly attach a finite clause with a subject and verb. Option D scrambles the fixed preposition's word order.
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "by virtue of" at the start of a sentence to explain why a certain constraint applies?
"By virtue of its append-only design, the log can be safely replicated..." preserves the correct fixed order "by virtue of" followed by the noun phrase. Options B, C, and D each scramble the order of "by", "virtue", and "of".