Large amounts of moisture and darkness create ideal conditions in

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



Large amounts of moisture and darkness create ideal conditions in home walls that enable the ant populations to grow.

A) that enable the ant populations to grow

B) for ant populations to grow

C) for growing ant populations

D) that enable ant populations to grow

E) that the ant populations can grow[/quote]

• HIGHLIGHTS
Two answers are correct: B and D.
I can justify both. My apologies.
I’ve posted hundreds of questions; I missed the boat on this one.
I will archive this question in a day or two, but I encourage you to read the explanation because I explain a property of the word that.

• Split #1 – meaning

Options C and E contain meaning problems.

Option C: Large amounts of moisture and darkness create ideal conditions in home walls for growing ant populations.
→ for growing is too suggestive of purpose or intent.
For growing sounds like the phrase “in order to grow.” No one wants to grow ants in their walls.

Option E: Large amounts of moisture and darkness create ideal conditions in home walls that the ant populations can grow.
→ Ants do not grow walls. Ants do not grow ideal conditions in home walls.

Eliminate options C and E

• Split #2 - do not use the for general nouns

Do not use the unless you are referring to specific or particular ant populations, or the sentence has already mentioned these populations.

Option A states, “. . . that enable the ant populations to grow.”
→ “The” signals some particular ant populations.
The sentence is talking about ant populations generally: moisture and darkness inside walls create ideal conditions for ant populations to thrive.

Here is another example:
Correct: Women are marching against misogyny.
Wrong: The women are marching against misogyny.
→ The word the implies some particular group of women. Which women? Women in a particular village, city, or country?

Eliminate A. (Option E contains the same problem as the in option A, but (E) is already gone.)

• No third split exists because both B and D can be justified.

Neither option is great. I give better versions of this sentence below.

• Option B
Option B: Large amounts of moisture and darkness create ideal conditions in home walls for ant populations to grow.

→ ideal conditions [in walls] for X to grow is acceptable
→ ideal conditions [in walls] for X to do something is acceptable

These sentences from the New York Time are similar:

Keeping the surface of the soil continually moist provides ideal conditions for damp-off to occur. (accessed here on 6/5/2020.

Expert Lauren Stadler concluded that . . . the conditions of warmth and stagnant water were ideal conditions for growth of bacteria. (accessed here, June 5, 2020.

• Option D

→ ideal conditions [in walls] that enable X to grow is acceptable
We know that the word “that” refers to conditions.

Option (D): Large amounts of moisture and darkness create ideal conditions in home walls that enable ant populations to grow.

Theoretically, “that” could refer to walls or conditions.
Theoretically, a pronoun may have a few antecedents and would then be ambiguous.

Are you really confused about what that refers to? Walls don't grow ant populations.
If only one of those antecedents is logical, the pronoun is not ambiguous.
The only logical antecedent for that is conditions.

The pronoun that is not ambiguous according to typical GMAC standards.

Although that typically attaches to the immediately preceding word (and thus would be explaining walls), there are exceptions.

The word which can “reach back over” prepositional phrases in order to modify its noun. The word that can do exactly the same thing.

Spoiler alert (and this is an advanced question)
In this official question, here, that reaches back over [u]two[/i] prepositional phrases to reach its noun.
→ That and prepositional modifiers are both essential, but they can’t both sit right next to the noun—so occasionally, that must “reach back” to modify its noun.

Finally, ideal conditions ... that enable X to do something is acceptable.

SAGE Publications is a very good publisher of high-level scholarly work. One author published by SAGE wrote:

How can we create ideal conditions that enable participative workers to flourish as human beings?
-- Barker, James R. The Discipline of Teamwork. SAGE Publications, Inc. 1999. p. 186, accessed [u]here on June 5, 2020.

Both B and D are correct, and this question is getting archived.

The sentence could be written this way:
Large amounts of moisture and darkness in home walls create ideal conditions that enable ant populations to grow.
OR
Large amounts of moisture and darkness in home walls create ideal conditions for ant populations to grow.

The words “ideal conditions” and “grow” imply that the thing is growing IN those ideal conditions.
→ Test this sentence out: Large amounts of moisture and darkness in home walls create ideal conditions in which ant populations can grow.
Okay, so the ants can grow, but the sense that they absolutely will grow gets lost, I think.

JonShukhrat , I appreciate your effort and care. I like the fact that you work hard and thoughtfully. You are curious and driven. And your research is often top notch.

I think this combination of words is more idiomatic than it seems.

I don’t think that option B is flat wrong.
In fact, (B) (“ideal conditions … for XYZ to grow) is probably more idiomatic than (D) (“ideal conditions … that enable XYZ to grow), if my search through high-end publications is any guide.
I couldn’t find a single example of (D)’s format in any of the five publications I searched; I easily found examples of (B).
I moved to scholarly publications in order to find an example of (D).

True story: Although I was torn between B and D, I chose option D. My writer's and editor’s ear “hears” option D as correct.

I showed my mother the question. One of her degrees is in English. She chose D.

On the other hand, my review of publications seems to favor option B.The OA on two sites is B.

Moral of the whole story: the question is poor.
I’ll archive it in a few days.


COMMENTS

bm2201 and Badari , welcome to SC Butler.

As I mentioned in my other OE, I am moving to a new place and have been slow to post.
I do not advise trying to move in the middle of a pandemic.

Thanks for your patience.

Be safe, everyone. Nice work.