Tally marks denote the numbers:

I - 1 (one)

II - 2 (two)  

III - 3 (three)  

IIII - 4 (four)  

IIII - 5 (five)

IIII I - 6 (six)  

IIII II - 7 (seven)

IIII III - 8 (eight)  

IIII IIII - 9 (nine)  

IIII IIII - 10 (ten)

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A long time ago, people denoted the numbers using sticks. They painted them on the wall. In order not to lose count, they crossed the fourth stick using the fifth. It meant 5. Even then, people combined objects by five. Maybe they correlated this number with the number of fingers on one hand. When the fingers of one hand were not enough to count, they put a mark somewhere (a stick, a notch, or a knot) and kept on counting.

Even now, we can count objects in this way. Sticks I, II, III, IIII are not crossed out. These are the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4. If we add I to IIII, we put this stick across the previous signs. Thus we get IIII, which denotes the number 5. Two times for IIII (IIII and IIII) equals 10. 

How do we write the number 6 in this way? Let's imagine 6 as 5 and 1. Then it will look like this: IIII I.

Let's write down all the numbers from 1 to 10 using tally marks:

I - 1 (one)

II - 2 (two)  

III - 3 (three)  

IIII - 4 (four)  

IIII - 5 (five)

IIII I - 6 (six)  

IIII II - 7 (seven)

IIII III - 8 (eight)  

IIII IIII - 9 (nine)  

IIII IIII - 10 (ten)

You need to count tally marks without missing a single one and specify the number. 

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