Variant 1 You could have come first and won the race if you … faster

17. They were close friends … the difference in their age.

A) in spite B) although C) despite D) even though

18. He asked, “Will they visit us in the summer?” He asked … visit us in the summer.

A) if they would B) will they C) whether would they D) when will they

19. The river flooded because it … raining heavily for weeks.

A) would be B) is C) was D) had been

20. It was very cold during the years I spent in Sweden, and … winter the temperature fell to around –30 degrees Celsius during the day.

A) the B) some C) one D) a

As soon as early men learnt how to write, they developed a way of putting down numbers. The ancient Egyptians used a hieroglyphic (pictorial) method of representing numbers for counting, weighing and measuring. The Greeks used an alphabetical system: alpha for 1, beta for 2 and so on. The Romans used simple stroke marks for the first three numbers, but for 5, they used a V sign, which may originally have been represented as a hand; 10 was two Vs, linked together as a cross, forming the symbol X. Primitive tribes today still count by fives because there are five fingers on each hand; Eskimos still count in twenties. In the Middle Ages, twenty, known as a score, was a much used number; in fact, we still keep the word ‘score’ in such games as football, tennis and cricket.