Question

making an inference
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.
—the dark game,
paul janeczko
why were the code breakers excited when they realized that 97556 stood for zimmermann?
○ they were proud that they had intercepted a message
○ they were excited that the message was full of oddities
○ they had never before decoded a name
○ they realized they had intercepted a message from the german foreign secretary

Explanation:

The text states that 97556 stood for Zimmermann, and this name (of the German foreign secretary) made the code breakers excited because it meant they intercepted a message from a high-ranking German official. The other options don't match: the excitement wasn't just about intercepting any message, oddities, or decoding a name for the first time.

Answer:

D. They realized they had intercepted a message from the German foreign secretary