简单概括一下上面的描述：

1：due to相当于介词。

2：due to和because of是同义词，各种混用。

3：18世纪有一票人研究due和owing的区别，认为due to不能作介词。

4：due to就是介词，就是介词，就是介词……

好吧，韦氏字典你赢了，下面当然是。。。

看看牛津字典怎么说：

牛津字典

简单概括一下上面的描述：

1：due to有一个意思是“由...引起的”

2：due to还有一个意思是“因为...”

所以说，牛津字典的观点是due to既可以作形容词，也可以作介词。

下面我们再来看看The Economist Style Guide是怎么说的：

The Economist Style Guide

When used to mean caused by, due to must follow a noun, as in The cancellation, due to rain, of... Do not write It was cancelled due to rain. If you mean because of and for some reason are reluctant to say it, you probably want owing to. It was cancelled owing to rain is all right.

仔细想想上面这段话写的不是很清晰，因为按照韦氏字典和牛津字典的描述，It was cancelled due to rain是对的，只不过这里的due to是因为的意思，而不是由...引起的意思。

那我们看看GMAT官方解释里说了啥：

GMAT官方解释

这道题大家都比较熟悉，是OG2016的句子改错第30题，我们重点看看关于due to说了什么：

神马？官方直接给due to定性为修饰名词，意思是caused by。

让我先平静一下...

然后我在网上搜了一下，看到了www.thefreedictionary.com有这样一段描述：

Usage Note: Due to has been widely used for many years as a compound preposition like owing to, but some criticshave insisted that due should be used only as an adjective. According to this view, it is incorrect to say The concertwas canceled due to the rain, but acceptable to say The cancellation of the concert was due to the rain, where duecontinues to function as an adjective modifying cancellation. Although there is still some support for this notion among members of the Usage Panel, the tide has turned toward accepting due to as a full-fledged preposition. Back in 1966,the "adverbial" use of due to (as in was canceled due to the rain) was rejected by 84 percent of the Panel. In our 2001survey, however, 60 percent accepted this construction. There is no linguistic reason to avoid using due to as apreposition, but English has a variety of ready substitutes, including because of, on account of, and owing to.

简单概括一下：

1：确实有一票人反对due to当because of用，1966年这票人占比84%，2001年这票人占比只有40%了

2：语言上讲没必要避免使用due to作为介词，但是可替代的词多了，你干嘛非要跟due to干上了（GMAT不考我有毛病呀研究这个）！

所以考场上遇到了怎么办？

1：既然官方解释提到了due to表达不是很清楚，就把它和because of的区别当考点，当然优先使用because of。

2：选来选去because of选项也不好，那就再pk一次。看看到底是due to问题大，还是另一个问题大，至于答案到底是什么，已经不重要了，不纠结，开始做下一道题！

周谢慧

北京新东方学校GMAT项目负责人、

优秀教师，教授GMAT句子改错十余年。

曾获北京大学理学学士学位和理学硕士学位，曾任教于北京大学文理学院。自2002年起，开始从事MBA申请咨询服务，并聚焦于GMAT考试策略研究，对GMAT学习计划制定、考试技巧训练有独到见解。对知识点的讲解深入浅出，深受学生好评。

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