Fill in the blank with a suitable preposition.
He was punished _______ his brother for stealing his pen.
The prepositions ‘with’ and ‘by’ are often confused in spite of their difference. ‘With’ is used to denote a tool used to perform something, while ‘by’ is used to refer to the agent or the person who performs the action. In the given sentence, the brother is the person who performs the action which is punishing, therefore option C is correct, whereas option A is incorrect. On the other hand ‘through’ is used to denote means. Since the sentence denotes a person and not a means, option B is incorrect. Whereas ‘to’ is used to denote the endpoint or the receiver which is not apt here as the given context doesn't speak about a receiver. Thus option D is incorrect.