Water bikes and jet skies ...

[camitava]

Nine months after the country banned jet skies and other water bikes from the tranquil waters of Puget Sound, a judge overturned the ban on the ground of violating state laws for allowing the use of personal watercraft on common waterways.
A) of violating state laws for allowing
B) of their violating state laws to allow
C) it violates state laws that allowed
D) it violated state laws allowing
E) that state laws were been violated allowing

OA after some discussion

[Abhishek009]

Nine months after the country banned jet skies and other water bikes from the tranquil waters of Puget Sound, a judge overturned the ban on the ground of violating state laws for allowing the use of personal watercraft on common waterways.
A) of violating state laws for allowing
B) of their violating state laws to allow
C) it violates state laws that allowed
D) it violated state laws allowing
E) that state laws were been violated allowing

OA after some discussion

Is it (D) ?

[camitava]

Abhishek can you explain why you choose D instead of A. All other options except A are having some problems - E.g. -
In option B, we did not find any reference for the pronoun "their"
In option C, incorrect use of present tense
In option E, incorrect use of passive voice

But I did not find any problem in A. It is true that the OA is D but why did we error out A?

Anticipate your early reply ...

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Hi camitava,

The original prompt has a couple of problems that ultimately make it incorrect:

1) Verb tense - the sentence states "...a judge overturnED THE BAN on the ground...." so we know that we're dealing with A ban (singular) and that the judge overturnED it in the PAST. Notice answer D correctly refers to a singular pronoun (it) and a past tense verb (violated), while answer A does not.

2) Style - "the law...allows..." or "a law allowing..." would be grammatically correct. The phrase "a law FOR allowing" is not (the word "for" in front of "allowing" is unnecessary/redundant).

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich