Identify the entire gerund phrase in the following sentence and identify its noun use.

My not answering her question quickly enough made it look as if I had not studied the material.

gerund phrase:

noun use:

The gerund phrase here is "My not answering her question quickly enough". The gerund itself is "answering" (-ing participle which acts like a noun), whereas everything else in this phrase describes it in a similar way adjectives describe a noun. The noun use of this gerund phrase is subject - that is, the semantical center of the sentence, the person or the thing that does the action of the sentence.