Complete the statements that follow each of the paragraphs below by choosing the letter of the correct response.

Question

(1) The promise of steady work, good pay, and kinship ties at first lured eager rural young women to the mills in nineteenth-century New England. (2) Many pairs of sisters and cousins worked in the same mill and lived in the same boarding house. (3) They helped each other adjust, and their letters home drew other kin to the mills. (4) Young women then had few opportunities for work outside their own homes, and the commercial production of yarn and cloth had reduced their workload in New England farm households. (5) Averaging sixteen and one-half years of age when they entered the mills, the girls usually stayed only about five years—few intended to stay longer. (6) Their earnings brought them independence and the freedom of deciding whether to spend or save their earnings.

The implied main idea of this paragraph is
a. young women benefited from mill work.
b. mills in New England provided women with new opportunities.
c. marriage in the nineteenth century saved women from a lifetime of drudgery in the mills.
d. commercial production in the nineteenth century depended on the labor of young women.

Answer 1

a. young women benefited from mill work.