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READING PRACTICE TEST - MATCHING HEADINGS – TEST 27
A. Money string changes source
E. Size matters
B. What in a colour
F. How we got that mark
C. Weight of money
G. Before money comes in
D. From a million pounds to thousands of dollars
H. Free
to choose from
Q1. In early societies people developed barter as a form of proto-money, when they used the things that
everyone agreed to accept in trade. Various items have been used by different societies at different times.
Thus, for example, Aztecs used cacao beans, Norwegians
used butter, the early U.S. colonists used tobacco
leaves, and Roman soldiers were paid a salary of salt. On the island of Nauru, the islanders even used rats
for this purpose.
Q2. The first coins were made in the Kingdom of Lydia, located on the territory of Turkey in the 7th
century B.C. The Lydians used weighed lumps of metal and stamped them with pictures to
confirm their
weight (the shape of the coins was unimportant). The process of stamping was called “minting”. In fact, the
stamp on the coin was a seal that identified the person who had guaranteed the weight of that coin.
Q3. The well-known dollar sign has various explanations. Perhaps one of the most widely accepted is that
it was the result of the evolution of the Mexican or Spanish “Ps” which was used for pesos. This theory
explains that the “S” gradually came to be written over the “P”, developing a close equivalent to the
American dollar “$” mark. It was widely used even before the adoption of the United States dollar in 1785.
Q4. The largest banknote ever issued by the Bank of England was the £1,000,000 note. Designed for use
by the
UK government only, the notes were canceled after just a few months, allowing very few to escape
into private hands. However, just because the notes are out of service nowadays doesn’t mean that they are
valueless. In 2008, one of two known surviving notes was sold at auction for almost $120,000.
Q5. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world’s largest banknote is the 100,000- peso
note, which is of the size of a standard sheet of paper. It was created by the government of the
Philippines
in 1998 to celebrate a century of independence from Spanish rule. The note was offered only to collectors,
who could purchase one of the limited-edition notes for 180,000 pesos, or about $3,700.
Q6. American Indians used to have strings of clamshells, which they called wampum and used as money.
The process to make wampum was very labor intensive, which increased their value among the European
traders. However, the Dutch colonists began to manufacture wampum themselves
and eventually became
the primary source of wampum, thereby destroying the system which had functioned for centuries.
Q7. Why are U.S. notes green? No one is really sure. However, in 1929, when the Bureau of Printing and
Engraving began making smaller size currency, green continued to be used because its pigment was readily
available in large quantities. Green is also relatively high in its resistance
to chemical and physical
changes, and it has been psychologically identified with the strong and stable credit of the government.