Seven Stories
Seven Stories
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1
Pop art
Pop art
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2
Reading
The history of numbers
The history of numbers
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3
1 Read the text quickly and match the sentence halves.
The invention of photography
1 Roman numbers were made of a dots and lines.
The invention of photography
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4
2 Mayan numbers were made of b pictures.
3 Ancient Egyptian numbers were made of c letters.
Our number system is amazing! We can write any whole number with these symbols: 0, 1, 2, 3,
Unusual musical instruments
Unusual musical instruments
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5
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. The symbol  3 means  three . To write  four thousand (4000), we use the symbol
 4 , and three zeros. The zeros show that there aren t any hundreds, there aren t any tens, and
there aren t any ones. The modern number system came from India and Arabia. Europeans
started using these symbols in the 13th century. This system is very simple. We only need four
British food traditions
British food traditions
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6
symbols to write the number  three thousand, nine hundred and six :
3906
In ancient times, different number systems developed in different places around the world.
Most of these systems were much more complicated than the modern system. Here are a few
examples:
All about giraffes
All about giraffes
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7
Modern number Ancient Egyptian symbol
The Ancient Egyptians used picture symbols
to show numbers. Here are the symbols for the
1
numbers up to one million:
)
Escher
Escher
There wasn t a symbol for zero. They repeated
8
8 10
the symbols to make bigger numbers, so
sometimes the numbers were enormous. In
100
Egyptian writing, 3906 looks like this:
You read this number from right to left. The
Sailing in the 16th century
Sailing in the 16th century
1 000
9
9
10 000
Term 1 A treasure map
Term 1 A treasure map
100 000
three flowers mean  three thousand , the nine
1 000 000
pieces of rope mean  nine hundred , and the six
Term 2 Nonsense poems
Term 2 Nonsense poems
sticks mean  six . There aren t any foot bones
because there aren t any tens.
The Romans didn t have a symbol for zero The Mayans, in Mexico and
either. They didn t use pictures  they used Central America, used dots
Term 3 Sandybridge Island
Term 3 Sandybridge Island
letters. Roman numbers were sometimes very and lines to make numbers.
long too. Here is the number 3906 in Roman They also had a symbol for
writing: zero  it looked like a shell.
But this number system was
very complicated. Here is
the number 3906 in Mayan
writing:
4
The history of numbers
PHOTOCOPIABLE
© Oxford University Press | Incredible English 5
Reading
2 Find these words in the text. Write.
1 the opposite of  complicated = s __ __ __ __ __
2 the opposite of  modern = a __ __ __ __ __ __
3 lll = d __ __ __
4 = l __ __ __ __
3 Look at the table and write the numbers in Ancient Egyptian writing.
1 eight hundred and forty-one:
2 six million:
3 one thousand and five:
4 Read the text again and write T (true) or F (false).
1 The modern number system came from India and Egypt.
2 The Ancient Egyptian symbol for ten thousand was a finger.
3 The Romans had a symbol for zero.
4 The Mayans had a symbol for zero.
5 Complete the crossword.
Clues:
Across
)
3 The Mayan symbol for  zero looked like
1
a ___.
2
5 Some ancient number systems didn t
3
4
S
have a symbol for ___.
6 The Roman symbol for  one ___
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is  M .
6 7
8 The Ancient Egyptians used ___ to
represent numbers.
Down
º
8
1 The modern number ___
is very simple.
2 The ___ lived in Mexico and Central America.
4 The Romans used ___ to represent numbers.
7 The Ancient Egyptian symbol for  one is a ___.
The history of numbers
5
PHOTOCOPIABLE
© Oxford University Press | Incredible English 5