Attendant
 

Hello. I seem to be having problems with the following fill-in-the-gap exercise (Sorry it's such a long paragraph, but I thought I'd better give you the whole context)
"The British, as everybody knows, are dignified and reticent, preferring to keep a stiff upper lip. If they seethe with emotion, they do so secretly. At a recent international conference, a businessman I knew made the startling observation that the conference ............ from Britain all spent their time obsessively covering their papers with doodles- wild circles, spirals, sketchy profiles and flowery shapes blossomed in every bit of white space. Those who were not filling in the capital 'O's and decorating them with spikes of sunlight were scribbling around the titles or drawing little yachts all over the Market Analysis section. Some other nations did do the occasional scrawl when listening raptly, but the British were undoubtedly the most compulsive of all those attending."

A people B members C fellows D attendants
I've got the answer key and the correct option seems to be "B members", but I really can't see why "D attendants" is incorrect, as apart from assistant it also means a person who attends a meeting and in this paragraph we are obviously talking about those attending the conference.
Once again, thank you.

Re: Attendant
 

No. Although the verb attend means to be present at an event, attendant has a different meaning -a person employed to look after or help others, eg a flight attendant, You can say attendees - Googling it, I came up with We had over 37000 registered attendees representing over 80 international countries but the word I would most likely use in this context would be either participants or delegates.