Multiple-choice cloze
For questions 1-8, read the text below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap.
For most of its history, the umbrella had nothing to do with rain. In ancient Egypt and China it was a sign of wealth and power, and only people of high were allowed to walk beneath one. Its job was to provide shade from the sun, the name, which comes from umbra, the Latin word for 'shade'. The waterproof umbrella is thought to have in China, where paper shades were coated with oil or wax to keep out the rain. In Europe, however, carrying one was long as something only women did. When the traveller Jonas Hanway began walking around London with an umbrella in the 1750s, people laughed at him in the street. Coach drivers, who made their money from people trying to getting wet, shouted insults at him. Hanway no attention to them, and for thirty years he carried his umbrella wherever he went. By the time he died, the habit had on, and men across the city were doing the same. Today, more than a billion umbrellas are sold every year, although most of us still manage to one on a bus at least once in our lives.
Tip: click a gap number to jump to its question.