According to the passage, what changed after movable metal type was developed?
Before the fifteenth century, books in Europe were copied by hand, a slow process that made them rare and costly. When Johannes Gutenberg developed a printing system using movable metal type around 1450, the production of books became faster and cheaper. Within a few decades, printing workshops had opened in many cities. Historians disagree about how quickly literacy spread as a result. Some argue that more books encouraged more people to learn to read, while others point out that most people could not afford books for many generations and that literacy rose mainly when schools became widely available. What is clear is that printed texts allowed ideas to travel further and be compared more easily.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: D. Books could be produced more quickly and at a lower cost.
- Step 1: The passage states that production became faster and cheaper after the invention. Step 2. That matches the option that books could be produced more quickly and at a lower cost. Answer: Books could be produced more quickly and at a lower cost. Why not the others: Hand copying was the earlier method; the text says historians disagree about how quickly literacy spread, so it was not immediate; schools are mentioned as a later cause of literacy, not as a result of printing.
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