Anyway, it was not 39 10 o’clock the next morning that I finally woke up.
答案：(C) until
【句型】it was not until...that... 固定強調句型「直到……才……」；before／after／towards 都不能這樣構成這個強調句型。
本題大考中心未公布逐題答對率，以下不談數據，只談觀念。
四個選項都是講時間的字，如果只讀空格附近，會覺得 before 或 after 好像也接得上。這一格要先看整句的形狀——那個形狀本身就是一個固定句型。
先把整句讀出來：it was not ___ 10 o’clock the next morning that I finally woke up。注意句子的結構：It was ... that ...，中間還夾著一個 not。這是強調句型的框架，而 It is／was not until ＋ 時間 ＋ that ＋ 主詞 ＋ 動詞 是固定的說法，意思是「直到……才……」。本句就是「直到隔天早上十點，我才終於醒過來」。還原成不強調的說法就更清楚了：I didn’t wake up until 10 o’clock the next morning.（我到隔天早上十點才醒。）把 not until 那一段抽出來擺到 It was ... that 中間，就成了本句。順便對照 90 年第 24 題，那一格也填 until，但用法完全不同：那裡是 an alarm that gets increasingly louder until it is turned off（鬧鈴越來越大聲，直到被關掉為止），講的是一個持續的過程延續到某個終點。同一個字，一個是強調句型的一部分、一個是單純的時間連接詞。
before、after、towards：三個都是講時間的字，但 It was not before／after／towards ... that ... 都不是通行的說法。語意上也不對——本句要說的是「一直到那個時間點才醒」，不是「在那之前」、「在那之後」或「快到那個時間」。
It was not until … that …（直到……才……）、not … until（直到……才）、wake up（醒來）、the next morning（隔天早上）、taste strange（嚐起來很怪）、serve coffee（供應咖啡）。
It was my first day in this beautiful tropical city. 31 I was walking to the beach, a stranger came up to me and tried to shake my hand. "Don't you remember me, my friend?" he said. But I couldn't 32 his face at all. I didn't know a soul in the city. I had just arrived by plane and still had jetlag. "I 33 you at the airport. I work there at the customs. How are you enjoying our beautiful city?" I couldn't remember him but I was too 34 to tell him. He was so friendly.
35 he offered to take me to his uncle's seafood restaurant, just by the beach. I thanked him 36 but he insisted that we should go there for dinner. "You'll love the seafood there," he 37 me. "And it will be a dinner to remember."
So we went to the restaurant and sat by a window 38 the bay. The dinner was great indeed, but the coffee they served was quite different. In fact, it tasted very strange...
Anyway, it was not 39 10 o'clock the next morning that I finally woke up. But I had no idea where I was. All my money was 40 and my "friend" had even taken my watch and my shoes!