Have you got a favourite number? A number that’s lucky for you or that has some special significance? When somebody asks you to choose a number between one and ten, does any particular number spring to mind? The following five people would say “yes”. They each have a number that is special for them in some way; a lucky number.
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Read the article and then do comprehension exercise (1) and comprehension exercise (2). Finally, do some writing yourself and see texts written by other readers.
My favourite number is seven. I don’t know why exactly but I have loved the number seven since I was a child. When you think of it there are lots of significant sevens: The number of days in a week, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Seven Deadly Sins that they based the movie on; the one with Brad Pitt. Then there are The Seven Dwarves of course. I can never remember all of their names. There’s another movie too – The Magnificent Seven. That’s a great classic. And I love 7-Up too ... really!
Ten is my number. It’s a good number for lots of reasons. All kinds of good things come in tens; our fingers and toes, for example, and The Ten Commandments. Ten is the basis of our number system. I like the Roman symbol for ten too. It’s an “x”, the same as the symbol for a kiss. I love going bowling at the weekends and there are ten pins in a bowling alley. That’s a coincidence, I think. Then there’s the age ten. I got a bike for my tenth birthday. I’ll never forget that.
My favourite number is definitely the number one. When anybody says “pick a number between one and ten” I always pick “one”. I don’t know why. It’s an important number though, don’t you think? There is only one of a lot of things ... it means “unique”; one world, one life ... I like unicycles too; you know .... those bikes with one wheel. I’d like to try to ride one, it looks impossible but I think it would be great fun. Some people think that liking number one means that you only think about yourself. I read about it once. Maybe that’s true. I don’t know.
Three is my favourite number. I prefer odd numbers to even numbers and three is a number that has come up a lot in my life. All of the tales I used to listen to as a child involved the number three; The Three Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goats Gruff ... and there are more, lots more. I’m one of three chidren too. I have got one brother and one sister. I’m the youngest. I think three is a perfect number.
My lucky number is definitely eight. Don’t ask me why, but it is. I like the way it looks on the page. It’s a weird sort of number. It looks the same upside down and that’s unusual. I adore spiders too and they have eight legs. Scorpions have eight legs too, but I don’t like them. According to Indian mythology, the world is supported on the back of eight white elephants. I don’t believe that of course, but it’s quite a nice idea, don’t you think? I’ve also heard that the dollar sign is based on the number eight. I don’t know how true that is. It’s got something to do with “pieces of eight”, the coins that pirates used to have. Yes, eight is a nice number.
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Do you have a special or lucky number? If so, why is it special? Do you not believe in 'lucky numbers'? If not, why not? Send us your texts.
Christian writes “Let me say that my favourite number is seven. In the past, I thought that I couldn’t explain why. But now,I think that my subconscious made this choice. Indeed, I was born on the seventh of September. There is a geometrical reason too: I love mathematics and I particularly like to write the number seven with a fountain pen! I think numbers are important for all.”
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Igor Malinovsky writes “I have several favourite numbers. I quite agree with Anne (nurse). I mean number seven. It's a magic number. And everyone knows about it. Seven days in a week, Seven Wonders of the World, and there are a lot of different personal things concerning number seven in my life.
I also like number three, one and number nine. They are all present in my life. And I consider that every man on this Planet has his own magic numbers. Plenty of people don't think about it. But I always thought about it and sometimes I used to think that I'm a little bit crazy ... but now I see I'm not as crazy as I thought before. I love these numbers ...”
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Ojong Gerrald writes “With numbered and not countable hairs on my head; with the ends of the oceans being their limit; with a countable number of stars in the sky. I have sometimes refrained from naming an ultimate number: God our creator doesn’t know everything (?) Or that there is a penultimate number (if the not the last) that He is yet to uncover. But this last character or number might be that which He hasn’t seen or heard of: any one, human or otherwise, superior to Him. And therefore I am still waiting on that number to be seeded first.”
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Zarina Banu writes “What is zero, is it nothing or a big circle? When I think about it I do not get any answer. When I solve a problem like 5 minus 0 , the answer is 5. But what happens when I multiply 5 with 0: the answer is zero. Why it is zero, what happened to the 5? It is a big question for me!”
Ibrahim Karadag writes “I like number six. You will ask me why of course. You know the best element is carbon. Carbon is very important for life. The atomic number of carbon is six. Honeycomb has six edges and if you use hexagonal capacity you get maximum filling-space. You see six is a marvellous number.”
Ghassan Essalehi writes “I do not have a specific favourite number, but I surely like even numbers, I can say they are my lucky charms. On the other hand, I hate odd numbers, maybe because I think they are lonely without any friend / partner / or even a family. I can say I like 8, maybe because of its look, it is the same whether it is up or down, also if it is horizontal it means the "Infinite".”
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Dr. Jawed writes "There was a time when I never believed in lucky numbers but over the past few years I've been noticing that number "5" always appears on significant occasions. For example I live on the fifth floor,we are five brothers and sisters my telephone number ends with five and many times I've been surprised by number "5". So I think it's an important number for me although it's not always lucky for me, something important happens whenever I encounter number "5". Sometimes I am scared to see number five and sometimes it gives me hope and courage. I call it "my number" instead of "lucky number". Well friends what's your number then?"
Li Jiang writes “I do not have a lucky number, because I do not believe in luck. When I was a child my mom always told that it was not right for someone to decide certain things just according to his favorite number.”
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Alexander writes “I fully agree with Colin. I have only two favorite numbers. One of them is the number one and another is zero. Although they appeared at different times they have great meaning in modern life. There are a lot of goods with a chip (microprocessor) inside. Each microprocessor works with binary digit code to put it in a different way with number one and zero. Without these up-to-date products we can hardly imagine our life today. One and zero as numbers have great meaning.”
BuiDuyQuang writes “Don't ask me why I chose my favourite number as ten. In my country the highest mark is ten so everyone in my class want to get that mark. I like soccer very much and my position is forward. The number on my shirt is ten. All over the world famous soccer players always wear the number ten on their shirts. My birthday in October (the 10th month). I love the number ten so much.”
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Number: Wikipedia
HowStuffWorks: How lotteries work
BBC radio 4: Science - 5 numbers
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