Question 200·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Information and Ideas
Public discussions often treat an increase in independent contractors as proof that workers are leaving standard employment in pursuit of autonomy. Economist Leila Corwin compared labor-force survey classifications with workplace records and interviews across three industries. Over a decade, the share of workers listed as contractors rose markedly, yet the share who set their own hours, served multiple clients, or supplied their own tools changed little. Interviews showed that some companies had moved employees onto staffing platforms or kept their duties unchanged while paying them as vendors. At the same time, genuinely self-directed work expanded among newcomers in design and consulting, and these entrants accounted for some, but not all, of the new contractor classifications. For Corwin, the survey label records a payment relationship; determining what has changed in work requires examining the arrangements behind that label.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
For a main-idea question, identify the broad claim introduced by the passage and then combine all evidence that qualifies it. When two choices acknowledge the same facts, examine whether either one adds an unsupported judgment about which cause dominates, generalizes from a subgroup, or divides overlapping categories too rigidly.
Hints
Distinguish labels from working conditions
Consider what a contractor classification records and whether it necessarily reveals how much control a worker has.
Use both sets of findings
Account for both the stability of the overall autonomy indicators and the increase in self-directed work among certain newcomers.
Check the scope of each choice
Reject any option that assigns a dominant cause without sufficient evidence or treats the two developments as completely separate.
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the claim under examination
The text begins with the common interpretation that rising contractor totals prove workers are moving away from standard employment to gain autonomy.
Compare the two kinds of evidence
Overall indicators of autonomy changed little, and some companies merely changed how workers were paid or classified. However, self-directed work did genuinely expand among some newcomers in design and consulting.
Determine the overall implication
The contractor category therefore includes workers whose actual arrangements changed and workers whose classifications changed while their duties remained similar. Choice A preserves this mixed finding without assigning unsupported priority to either cause or treating the two measures as entirely separate.