Question

Read the excerpt from The Dark Game. As Montgomery and de Grey slowly made their way through the message, they noticed more and more oddities. For example, 97556 appeared near the end of the message; the 90000 family indicated important names that were not used very often in messages. We can imagine their shock when they realized that 97556 stood for Zimmermann. That single name fired the men with excitement as they began working on the message from the beginning. Which statement best explains how the evidence of this excerpt leads to the inference that the men had intercepted a very important message?

Answer 1

This excerpt focuses on a very important message that men are trying to decipher, in the way they achieve to figure out important an important detail (the 90000 family indicates important names) that leads them to finally get where they wanted to: the author of the message, Zimmermann.

We can infer that the men had intercepted that important message because of the shock and the excitement the men showed when they discovered that the message was sent by Zimmermann, and from that point on they eagerly started working on the message from the beginning.

Answer 2

Based on the the excerpt from The Dark Game, I think that the statement that best leads to the inference that the men had intercepted a very important message was: "That single name fired the men with excitement as they began working on the message from the beginning." The statement suggests that they have unlocked something important as they were excited and became persistent on further working on the cryptic message.