Question

Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.

The only way to make a lot of sugar is to engineer a system in which an army of workers swarms through the fields, cuts the cane, and hauls the pile to be crushed into a syrup that flows into the boiling room. There, laboring around the clock, workers cook and clean the bubbling liquid so that the sweetest syrup turns into the sweetest sugar. This is not farming the way men and women had done it for thousands of years in the Age of Honey. It is much more like a factory, where masses of people must do every step right, on time, together, or the whole system collapses.

What claim do the authors make in this passage?

Sugar farming is a modern version of honey farming.
Sugar cane has to be boiled in order to make sugar.
Sugar production requires a great deal of workers.
This method of making sugar is thousands of years old.

Answer 1

Sugar production requires a great deal of workers.

The passage calls for an "army of workers" and says "masses of people must do every step right, on time, together," showing the authors' main claim about how labor-intensive sugar making is.