Complete the text using the correct passive form of one of the verbs below in each space. Did nothing always exist or ________________________ it ________________________ (INVENT)? ’Nothing’ is zero or nought. It is a very useful idea and it ________________________ (CALL) by many different names. In football, 0 ________________________ (REFER) to as ’nil’. So we say: "Liverpool ________________________ or ________________________ (BEAT) two-nil (2-0) at home by Manchester United." When you ________________________ (GIVE) marks in a test, you hope you will never get ’nought’ out of ten or twenty. When we talk about the temperature, ’zero’ ________________________ (USE). We say: "It is freezing today; the temperature has dropped to five below zero." The most unusual name for 0 must be that which ________________________ (USE) in tennis, ’love’ where the scoring goes 15-love, 30-love and so on. Not many people realize that 0 did not always exist but is something that had to ________________________ (INVENT). Until the sixteenth century, the number system used in Europe was the Roman system, which ________________________ (INVENT) about two thousand years ago. The Roman system is not simple, for example the mark ’X’ stands for ten and ’C’ refers to a hundred. A much better number system ________________________ (INVENT) by the Hindus much earlier. The Hindu system ________________________ (BRING) to Europe in AD 900 by the Arabs and ________________________ sometimes ________________________ (REFER) to as the ’Arabic system’. This system ________________________ (BUILD) on a base of ten and all numbers ________________________ (WRITE} with the digits; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 0. So as all schoolchildren know, 10 means ’ten’ and 40 means ’four times ten’.
