124. ______ had the presentation started when the fire alarm began to ring, causing an immediate evacuation.
(A) Rare
(B) Hardly
(C) Sooner
(D) Scarcely

完整句子：

Hardly had the presentation started when the fire alarm began to ring, causing an immediate evacuation.

意思是：

簡報才剛開始，火災警報就響了，導致立即疏散。

? Hardly ... when ... 是固定句型

Hardly + had + 主詞 + 過去分詞 + when + 過去式

表示：

一……就……／才剛……就……

例如：

Hardly had I arrived when it started raining.
我才剛到，天就開始下雨了。

為什麼是倒裝？

正常語序可以理解成：

The presentation had hardly started when the fire alarm began to ring.

因為 Hardly 放到句首，為了強調，就必須倒裝：

Hardly had the presentation started when... ✅

其他選項

• (A) Rare ❌ → rarely 才是副詞，而且這個句型不能這樣用
• (B) Hardly ✅ → Hardly ... when ...
• (C) Sooner ❌ → 通常是 No sooner ... than ...
• (D) Scarcely ⚠️ → Scarcely had ... when ... 其實也是正確句型，但本題若是單選題，Hardly 與 when 是最典型的搭配

? TOEIC 必背三組：

? 特別記住：

Hardly / Scarcely → when
No sooner → than