Whitney wanted to speed up the making of guns by having machines manufacture each part. All machine-made parts would be alike—for example, one trigger would be identical to another. Identical parts would fit together with all other parts, and gunsmiths would not have to build each gun from scratch. Interchangeable parts would save time and money.

Question

Question
Use the passage to answer the question.
Based on this excerpt from the text, in what way would interchangeable parts best help businesses?
(1 point)
Responses

Parts made by machines could be made more cheaply.
Parts made by machines could be made more cheaply.

Customers had to wait longer to obtain the new parts made by machines.
Customers had to wait longer to obtain the new parts made by machines.

Machines could quickly manufacture parts people once made.
Machines could quickly manufacture parts people once made.

Businesses’ costs could increase to pay for the machinery.
Businesses’ costs could increase to pay

Answer 1

Based on the passage, the best way that interchangeable parts would help businesses is:

Machines could quickly manufacture parts people once made.

This response reflects the idea that machines can streamline the manufacturing process, making it faster and more efficient than having individual craftspeople create each part manually.