Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.

Early writing and Alphabets

When people first began to write, they did not use an alphabet. Instead, they drew small  pictures  to show the  objects  they  were  writing  about.  This  was  very  slow because there was a different picture for any word.

The Ancient Egyptians had a (1) _______ of picture writing that was described in hieroglyphics. The meaning of this writing was forgotten for a very long time but in 1799 some scientists discovered a stone near Alexandria, in Egypt. The stone had been there for (2) _______ a  thousand  years.  It  had  both  Greek  and  hieroglyphics  on  it  and researchers were finally able to understand what the hieroglyphics meant.

An alphabet is quite different (3) _______ picture writing. It consists of letters or  symbols  that  represent  a  sound  and  each  sound  is  just  part  of  one  word.  The Phoenicians,  (4) _______ lived  about  3,000  years  ago,  developed  the  modern  alphabet. It was  later  improved  by  the  Romans  and  this  alphabet is now used (5) _______ throughout the world.

The Ancient Egyptians had a (1) _______ of picture writing that was described in hieroglyphics.