Lack of fresh water is an ongoing problem in the outposts

[AnuH387]

Lack of fresh water is an ongoing problem in the outposts, and it is expected to continue until reinforcements arrive.

A. Lack of fresh water is an ongoing problem in the outposts, and it is expected to continue until reinforcements arrive.
B. Lack of fresh water is an ongoing problem in the outposts, which was expected to continue until reinforcements arrive.
C. Lack of fresh water is an ongoing problem in the outposts, and they are expected to continue until reinforcements arrive.
D. The outposts lack fresh water, a problem that is expected to continue until reinforcements arrive.
E. The outposts have a lack of fresh water, a problem expected to continue until reinforcements arrive

Source ;gmat club tests.

OA : E
I dont understand why D is wrong here..Official explanation says , In D 'problem' refers to fresh water.Is this correct? Noun-noun modifiers can modify the clause right ?

Please help.
are gmat club test verbal questions recommended? I find lots of ambiguity (not sure if its because of the gap in my knowledge ) in those questions..
Please advice .

[RonPurewal]

per the forum rules, we need a citation of the ORIGINAL SOURCE before we can answer any questions about this problem.

ORIGINAL SOURCE = ORIGINAL authorship = whoever holds the actual copyright to the problem (not another forum, such as GMAT club).

thanks.

[SrishtiM905]

Hi Ron,
I have very basic doubts in option A.
1. Is 'lack of fresh water' is a noun phrase?
2. If answe to point#1 is 'yes', then can we use 'it' to refer 'lack of fresh water'?

[RonPurewal]

yes, "it" can be used to mean "the LACK (of fresh water)".

there are at least 2 major problems with choice A:

• the ideas connected by "and" are not TWO SEPARATE observations, so, "and" is inappropriate.
(it's clear in context that the second part SHOULD be written as a modifier of the first part, as it is in the correct choice.)

• the use of both "ongoing" and "expected to continue" is redundant.

__

also, D is a better sentence than E. if the ORIGINAL SOURCE actually says that the correct answer is E, then... well, you definitely shouldn't use that source anymore.

[RonPurewal]

in any case—either way, we shouldn't be discussing this problem here.

• GMAT Club is another forum. the problems discussed there are largely from other sources.
if this problem was not produced by GMAT Club itself, then, that's not a valid source citation.

• even if this problem IS the intellectual property of GMAT Club, it would be better discussed on GMAT Club's own forums.

thanks.