This is probably a rather abstruse question about the usage of "prepare"; I haven't been able to find any resources that clearly demonstrate or explain the difference in distributions of the verbs involved. I can only explain the problem through example sentences.
A lot of my students in SEA are using "prepare" ALL the time when they could (should?) have used another verb. For example:
- I have prepared two tips for you. (in a PPT on teaching tips)
- I have prepared some coffee for us. (as in, they bought coffee and brought it with them)
- I will prepare the copies for you. (when you need to get copies made)
These are just a few examples and as you can see, they are not always completely illogical choices of verb, but they just sound weird. The coffee example is perhaps the easiest to explain, but I often get stuck explaining the usage. As "prepare" means to do something beforehand, then students think they can use it for any activity they did before whatever event they're talking about now ... yet this isn't the case. (Or there are at least more natural-sounding ways of expressing the situation.). So when is the transitive verb "prepare" meaning 'get [something] ready' idiomatic?