Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer for each of the blanks from 36 to 45.
The universal symbol of the Internet era communications, the @ sign used in e-mail addresses to signify the word ‘at’, is (36)_________ a 500-year-old invention of Italian merchants, aRomeacademic has revealed. Giorgio Stabile, a science professor at La Sapienza University, (37)__________to have stumbled on the earliest known example of the symbol’s use, as a(n) (38) __________ of a measure of weight or volume. He says the sign represents an amphora, a measure of (39) ____________ based on the terracotta jars used to transport grain and liquid in the ancient Mediterranean world.
The professor (40)____________toe ancient symbol in the course of research for a visual history of the 20th century, to be published by the Treccani Encyclopedia. The first (41)__________instance of its use, he says, occurred in a letter written by a Florentine merchant on May 4, 1536. He says the sign made its (42) __________ along trade routes to northernEurope, where it came to represent ‘at the price of, its contemporary accountancy (43)____________.
Professor Stabile believes that Italian banks may possess even earlier documents (44)__________the symbol lying forgotten in their archives. The oldest example could be of great value. It could be used (45) __________ publicity purposes and to enhance the prestige of the institution that owned it,* he says. The race is on between the mercantile world and the banking world to see who has the oldest documentation of @.
Trả lời câu hỏi dưới đây:
________(40)
A. tiếp xúc
B. khai quật
C. đào bới
D. phát minh