While he was sorting through the long 18 dishes of germs that morning, he observed that some of the dishes were contaminated with a fungus...
答案：(C) unattended
unattended dishes（無人照看的培養皿）呼應前文放假期間堆積在水槽裡的培養皿，表示這些長期無人照看的培養皿；disabled／excluded／misunderstood 均不符合此處語意。
unattended 因為陌生，眼睛很容易直接跳過去。它其實是拆得開的：un-（否定）＋ attend（照料、看顧）＋ -ed，合起來就是沒人照料的、無人看管的。attend 你的印象大概只有「參加」（attend a meeting），但它還有一個常用意思是照料、看護，attend to a patient 就是照顧病人。答對率四成三，多半是卡在 attend 的這個意思沒被叫出來。
四個選項都是過去分詞當形容詞用，修飾後面的 dishes，可見這一格考的是語意。線索有兩層。第一層在同一句裡：空格前面就是 long（長時間），long ___ 要能講出長時間處於什麼狀態。第二層在前一句：他休假前把培養皿隨手堆在水槽裡，然後放了一個長假才回來——那些培養皿當然是長時間沒人管。兩層線索指向同一件事。機場廣播裡常聽到的 Do not leave your baggage unattended.（請勿讓行李無人看管）走的就是這個字。
disabled（失能的）、excluded（被排除的）、misunderstood（被誤解的）三個都能擺在名詞前面當修飾語，形態上刷不掉，但套在培養皿上都不成立——培養皿不會失能、沒有被排除在什麼之外，也談不上被誤解。鑑別度 37，比同篇其他題低，原因是這一格不考推理：線索完全落在認不認得 unattended 這個字，回頭把上下文讀幾遍也推不出另外三個為什麼不對，大量閱讀的人在這裡占便宜。
leave sth unattended（讓……無人看管）、attend to sb／sth（照料、處理）、sort through（逐一翻找、整理）、be contaminated with（受……污染）、ruin an experiment（毀掉一項實驗）、fungus（黴菌）
Scientific discovery can take various forms. One of them is "serendipity," the luck of finding valuable things unintentionally. Serendipity was at work when Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the antibiotic miracle.
Fleming had long been known for having an untidy laboratory. One morning in 1928, this 16 proved very fortunate. It was his first day coming back to work after a long vacation. Before the vacation, he 17 in the sink a number of petri dishes in which he had been growing bacteria. While he was sorting through the long 18 dishes of germs that morning, he observed that some of the dishes were contaminated with a fungus, which had ruined his experiment. He was about to 19 the dishes, but he noticed that in one dish, the bacteria had failed to grow in the area around the fungus. This accidental finding gave rise to subsequent research that led to the discovery of penicillin—a drug that has since saved millions of lives.
Chance 20 , however, may not be enough to make key discoveries like this. The scientist must have a prepared and open mind to detect the importance of the unforeseen incident and to use it constructively.