Question

read the passage from sugar changed the world. a stream of pale ash - colored syrup gushed out from the mills, bubbling with foam. the liquid rushed down a wooden gutter directly into the boiling house, a building of massive furnaces and cauldrons, where the syrup was heated and strained and turned into crystals. a giant copper kettle—often about four feet across and three feet deep—waited for the pale river. this was the first in a series of ever - smaller cauldrons, or \open mouths\—the huge furnaces that had to be constantly filled with the wood that workers had chopped down and hauled to be ready for this moment. the boiling house was as perilous as the mills, for if a person nodded off for a second, he or she could slip into a bubbling vat. mammoth fires burned in the \mouths\, clouds of steam billowed above the kettles, and the heat was so intense that the boiling houses had to be sprayed with water so they would not go up in flames. then there was the smell, or rather, the stench of the boiling liquid. as the sugar cane juice boiled, a foul scum rose to the top—which a slave had to keep skimming off with a long - handled ladle. over and over again the liquid had to be strained and purified. which text evidence best supports the authors claim that sugar processing was a long and difficult process? a \a stream of pale ash - colored syrup gushed out from the mills.\ b \the mills.\ c \then there was the smell, or rather, the stench of the boiling liquid.\ d \as the sugar cane juice boiled, a foul scum rose to the top.\ e \over and over again the liquid had to be strained and purified.\

Explanation:

To determine which text evidence supports the claim that sugar processing was long and difficult, we analyze each option:

• Option 1 ("A stream of pale ash - colored syrup gushed out from the mills") only describes the output from the mills, not the difficulty or length of the process.
• Option 2 ("Then there was the smell, or rather, the stench of the boiling liquid") focuses on the smell of the boiling liquid, not the process's difficulty or duration.
• Option 3 ("As the [sugar cane] juice boiled, a foul scum rose to the top") describes a part of the boiling process but doesn't emphasize the long and difficult nature.
• Option 4 ("Over and over again the liquid had to be strained and purified") shows that the liquid had to undergo the process of straining and purifying multiple times, which implies that the sugar processing was a long and difficult process as it required repeated efforts.

Answer:

D. "Over and over again the liquid had to be strained and purified."