As the proportion of Australian workers who are self-employed has boomed in the past decade, the topic of wealth creation for freelancers has become much more prevalent in business magazines. A standard maxim among such publications is that a sole proprietor is best off treating her business as a much larger enterprise with a set of core departments, including but not limited to executive, production, human resources, marketing, and finance functions. In effect, the freelancer would devote time and attention to each “department” in order to optimize her chances of success, and would, unaided, create content, advertising campaigns, contracts, and quarterly budgets.

Most freelancers, however, presently operate in the creative realm, encompassing not only traditional arts such as photography and writing but also more technical services such as computer programming and software engineering. Such creative forms of labor demand highly specialized skills. For the creative freelancer, then, whose most valued asset is labor, conceptualizing one’s business in such a fashion risks the dilution of the company’s most important resource: the freelancer’s skills. Distributing one’s labor across platforms is a zero-sum game that may yield positive results in some scenarios but not necessarily all. A photographer who spends his time developing a marketing plan may consequently jeopardize his public image by failing to devote sufficient effort to expanding his portfolio via new and high-value artwork. Moreover, because “word of mouth” is typically considered the most powerful means of marketing in a creative industry, the potential benefits of such a trade-off are far from certain.

1. The primary purpose of the passage is to

A. describe a current debate taking place among authors of a certain type of literature.

B. attack a particular theory as fundamentally untenable.

C. explain the prevalent theory of a particular business area.

D. discuss how one principle of business may not be optimal in all cases.

E. contrast two views with respect to a particular business area.

The OA is D


2. According to the passage, which of the following statements about the present-day freelancer population in Australia is true?

A. It is increasingly preoccupied with the question of how to create more wealth.

B. The majority of the freelancer population is composed of creative professionals.

C. Most freelancers are artists.

D. Many freelancers see themselves as structurally identical to larger corporations.

E. It has redefined the priorities of the publishing industry.

The OA is B


3. It can be inferred from the passage that the author believes word of-mouth marketing

A. is more prevalent in photography than in other industries.

B. is a form of marketing that requires no work on the freelancer’s part.

C. calls into question the utility of a particular business model.

D. lends credence to a photographer’s choice to develop a marketing plan.

E. underscores the importance of rejecting a widely held view.

The OA is C


4. The author of the passage mentions the photographer (Underlined) primarily in order to

A. provide an example of an instance in which the principle being discussed could be problematic.

B. suggest that, for this category of worker, the principle being discussed is rarely useful.

C. promote the idea that photography should be viewed as an exception to a general rule.

D. illustrate that marketing decisions are unique in that they should be considered based upon context.

E. remind readers that artistic integrity is more important than marketing for a true artist.

The OA is A