The correct answer is They wanted to acquire resources and find new markets for trade.
Step-by-step explanation:
Explorations and expeditions between the 11th and 14th centuries (age of exploration) were mainly motivated by economic purposes. Indeed, countries such as England, Spain, or Portuguese expected to obtain economic benefits by discovering and colonizing new territories. This is because they could use the resources from these territories to trade them or create new products and this implied increased wealth. Moreover, new places meant new markets for trade. For example, the discovery of the Americas implied European products could be sold in the Americas in addition to other continents in which they were already exported.