The strand fills with water during the rainy season that the peat then

Wow.. pretty nasty one. I don't like the trees in D could the answer be A?

Everybody should recognize that this is not an official GMAT question. However, something could be learned here.

OA is (D)
What is wrong with (A) and (B)?

Let us examine (A)

"The strand fills with water during the rainy season that the peat then holds and keeps it humid, all of which creates conditions enabling trees to grow."

I would read this sentence as: "The strands... keeps it humid, all of which creates conditions and enable trees to grow" The last part of the sentence (in blue) does not qualify the conditions. It does not tell us what kind of conditions are created by the strands filling with water phenomenon. The part "all of which creates conditions" might well be omitted from the sentence and still it would be a valid argument which enables trees to grow. The intent of this stem is to qualify the conditions and that is best done by (D).

I don't think you can rewrite

"The strand fills with water during the rainy season that the peat then holds and keeps it humid, all of which creates conditions enabling trees to grow."

as

"The strands... keeps it humid, all of which creates conditions and enable trees to grow"

(A) and (D) are grammatically same. I don't know how the meaning changes if we use participle phrase here as in (A).

Hello, maaverick.
I don't understand why it can be said "....all of which creates conditions and enable trees to grow...."

In my opinion, I think relative clause and participial phrase both modify the preceding noun "conditions".

Besides, I don't understand what's wrong with B.

My experience is that if one sees "for ... to ..." in a GMAT question one could almost be sure that it is wrong. Examples: for the trees to grow, for the eyes to register it, etc.

We often use it this way in our life. For example, we would say "Would it be possible for you to fix it for me?" But there's almost always a better way to say it: "Could you please fix it for me?"

Just a feeling, perhaps somebody could give us some insights from the grammar point of view.

Can please somebody explain why for - to connection is wrong?

Well what exactly is the skin –deep difference between for growing and to grow?

It is clear that ‘to grow’ is an infinitive that is used to do something, or that is used to achieve some purpose. 'For' in for growing is used as a preposition, which has to be followed by either a noun/pronoun, or noun phrase/pronoun phrase.

1. for growing – You can use growing after for if you meant to use growing as a gerund.


2. for growing trees; growing here can be ambiguous; it can either be a gerund or an adjective modifying trees.

3. for trees to grow; the prepositional for is ok because a noun phrase’ trees to grow” follows.
and
4. to grow trees. : simple – to grow brings out the purpose ‘ to grow’ trees.



A. enabling trees to grow. Though grammatically correct ,
a participial ‘conditions enabling’ is not as sharp as a relative clause such as ‘conditions that enable’ as in D. A razor thin difference indeed.

B. for the trees to grow. grammatically quite correct.

C. for growing trees. : creates conditions for growing trees. The purpose ‘to enable trees to grow’ is lost.

D. that enable the trees to grow.: to the point and correctly points out that the conditions enable the trees to grow.

E. that the trees can grow.: Change of intention

Except C and E, which blatantly change the meaning, A, B and D are grammatically correct but with insignificant differences. B is indeed most concise.

IMO D. C and E are obviously out as pointed out by daagh.
A. is out because for using the "ing" form i would say the sentence should be something like "The strand fills with water during the rainy season that the peat then holds and keeps it humid, enabling trees to grow."
B. somehow "for the trees to grow" does not "sound" perfect to me.

So what is the OA for this question?
I have doubt between B and D.

Official Explanation

Correct Answer: D

The best answer is D. In choices B and C the preposition for is used unidiomaticly. In choice A the omission of the word the makes it sound as though these conditions are necessary for all trees.

Need an expert’s opinion here.

Why Exactly B is wrong here?
Its clear and concise.

Conditions for who? Conditions for the trees to grow.- perfect
Besides in D, how can conditions enables the trees to grow?
Sounds weird, nobody enables or disables the trees to grow, they just grow!

If it said "Perfect" conditions, or "Great" conditions, or 'ideal,' or 'good,' B would be better.

But B just says it creates 'conditions' for the trees to grow. Well, I can go into my yard (...if I had one), and pour salt all over the Earth and say I've created conditions for trees to grow. They're just not good conditions. But hey, there's still soil and water.

D clarifies that these conditions are *helpful*. They *enable* something to happen.

I'll add to what ReedArnoldMPREP said regarding (B) that, if read literally, "conditions for the trees to grow" seems to express that trees grow conditions, as if these conditions are conditions that trees grow, similarly to how, "food for birds to eat," communicates that birds eat food and the food in question is food that birds eat.

The trick here is the subject "The strand". If we are talking about a specific strand not just about a natural phenomenon, we should use the for trees, as those are the trees of that particular area. C & E are irrelevant, and B is ambiguous in meaning. D uses the with trees so that is the correct answer.