A Story of Numbers — Practice

Q1. In Method 1 a herder keeps one stick for every cow in the herd. The final collection of sticks tells the herder

• A. The colour of each cow
• B. The number of cows in the herd
• C. The distance the cows have walked
• D. The age of the youngest cow

Q2. What is a mapping in which no two cows are mapped to the same stick called?

• A. A many-to-one mapping
• B. A one-to-one mapping
• C. A landmark mapping
• D. A place-value mapping

Q3. Ravi tries Method 2 from — using the English letters a, b, c,..., z to count objects. an obvious limitation of this method is that it cannot count collections having more than

• A. 10 objects
• B. 20 objects
• C. 26 objects
• D. 100 objects

Q4. The symbols occurring in a written number system is defined as

• A. Tally marks
• B. Landmark numbers
• C. Place values
• D. Numerals

Q5. Notches — marks cut on a surface such as a bone or a wall of a cave — are known by which name?

• A. Tally marks
• B. Numerals
• C. Landmark numbers
• D. Cuneiform

Q6. The Lebombo bone discovered in South Africa is estimated to be around how old, with how many notches?

• A. 20,000 years old, with 15 notches
• B. 35,000 years old, with 20 notches
• C. 44,000 years old, with 29 notches
• D. 1,00,000 years old, with 50 notches

Q7. In the Gumulgal system 1 is 'urapon' and 2 is 'ukasar'. The number name for 4 is

• A. urapon-urapon
• B. ukasar-ukasar
• C. ukasar-urapon
• D. ukasar-ukasar-ukasar

Q8. Landmark numbers of the Roman system. The value of L is

• A. 5
• B. 10
• C. 50
• D. 500

Q9. Aarti reads and writes 27 in the Roman system as 10 + 10 + 5 + 1 + 1. In Roman numerals this is

• A. XXVII
• B. XXIIV
• C. VVXXII
• D. VIIXX

Q10. The Egyptian written number system was developed around

• A. 500 CE
• B. 1100 CE
• C. 3000 BCE
• D. 10,000 BCE

Q11. A number system is base-n if its landmark numbers satisfy two conditions. Which pair of conditions is correct?

• A. First landmark is n, and the next landmark is n + 1
• B. First landmark is 1, and every next landmark is obtained by multiplying the current one by n
• C. First landmark is 0, and every next landmark is obtained by adding n
• D. First landmark is 10, and every next landmark is 10 times the previous

Q12. The later Mesopotamian number system became a base-60 system. This system is also called the

• A. Decimal system
• B. Sexagesimal system
• C. Vigesimal system
• D. Binary system

Q13. The influence of the Mesopotamian sexagesimal system is still seen in our modern units of time. Which pair of facts shows this?

• A. 1 day = 24 hours and 1 week = 7 days
• B. 1 month = 30 days and 1 year = 12 months
• C. 1 hour = 100 minutes and 1 minute = 100 seconds
• D. 1 hour = 60 minutes and 1 minute = 60 seconds

Q14. The first known instance of numbers being written using ten digits — including the digit 0 notated as a dot — occurs in which manuscript?

• A. Yajurveda Samhita
• B. Aryabhatiya (499 CE)
• C. Bakhshali manuscript (c. 3rd century CE)
• D. Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta (628 CE)

Q15. The use of 0 as a number — on which arithmetic operations can be performed like any other number — was codified by

• A. Aryabhata in the Aryabhatiya in 499 CE
• B. Brahmagupta in the Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta in 628 CE
• C. Al-Khwarizmi around 825 CE
• D. Fibonacci around 1200 CE