Final answer:
Large-scale societies with cities predominantly engage in intensive agriculture to meet their food needs, enabling them to sustain large populations and foster urban development.
Step-by-step explanation:
Large-scale societies with cities obtain most of their food primarily through intensive agriculture. This mode of subsistence involves the production of food on a large scale, often using advanced technology, irrigation, and the cultivation of crops on permanent farmlands. Intensive agriculture supports large populations through the production of food surpluses, which in turn supports the growth of cities and the development of civilizations.
In contrast, horticulture and pastoralism are subsistence patterns used by smaller-scale societies. Horticulture involves the cultivation of crops in gardens or small fields without the use of intensive technology, while pastoral societies depend primarily on the rearing of herd animals and are often mobile or semi-nomadic. Neither of these can support the high population density of large-scale societies with cities.