Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-13

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Write about the following topic:

In many countries, family members work together in their family business.

Do you think family businesses have more advantages than disadvantages?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

In numerous country, many joint family members ruin their family business. In my perspective, the benefits of this situation surpass the drawback. My advocacy elaborated in the essay citing relevant examples.

Discussing the advantages of the family business, the most significant is that each family member have their own ability work in particular sector. In other words each and every family member have their own creativity, idea and knowledge will help to grow that business. for example, one of the most famous family of India "Ambani family" have their 3rd generation of Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani who stared small business after that their sons and grandson contribute their own abilities and expand their family business at successful level. Furthermore, if you are work in family business you can learn different type of skill and techniques from your elder brother, sisters and father. and they also forgive your mistakes as past of your family. This means, people enhance their skills and knowledge from their family members rather than other people and if you are doing any mistake or wrong step they advice you and teach you how to work in business world.

on the contrary, there are drawbacks too. to initiate with the person who work in family business could not learn the how to deal with big problem or situations. This is to say, most of the people who work in family business they have limitation to work in that particular comfort zone. so they are not ready for face critical situation arise in that professional work. For instance, as per the survey in India 50 to 70% youngsters how ruin their company under their father and big brother and they have theoretical knowledge and the technical skills but practically they are not ready face any difficulty in their work life because they are pampered by family. Moreover, family business have limited opportunity for individual growth. This means, person who want to become individual personality on their professional work life and start their own startup or business would be not possible in that particular business.

To conclude, there are few aspects such as freshers are not to become capable to handling any crisis or difficult situation and limitation in personal growth or personality however, there are positive aspect such as unique creativity and idea help to expand that family business on top level and people learnt business skills from their family member without any hesitation and will get the apology easily if you done any mistakes in your company too. many arguments prove that benefits of this situation outweigh the drawbacks.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt directly by discussing both advantages and disadvantages of family businesses and takes a clear position that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Ideas are supported with relevant examples, such as the Ambani family in India, which shows a good attempt to apply external knowledge. However, some arguments lack deep extension, and certain assertions—such as the claim in the introduction that family members ruin businesses—contain logical contradictions with the rest of the essay. Nevertheless, all parts of the task are addressed, and the position is maintained throughout, fitting the Band 6 descriptor well.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is divided into logical paragraphs with an introduction, body paragraphs for advantages and disadvantages, and a conclusion. Cohesive devices are employed, such as 'Furthermore', 'on the contrary', and 'To conclude'. However, referencing and transitions are at times mechanical or faulty, as seen in awkward transitions like 'to initiate with the person who work in family business'. Paragraphing is present and generally appropriate, but the lack of smooth sentence-to-sentence linking and repetitive phrasing hold the score at Band 6.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate to communicate the central ideas, featuring terms like 'creativity', 'professional work life', 'technical skills', and 'critical situation'. However, there are noticeable lexical errors and awkward word choices, such as 'ruin' instead of 'run', 'stared' instead of 'started', and 'individual personality' instead of 'personal independence'. Less common vocabulary is attempted but frequently inaccurate, placing this response firmly in the Band 5 category for lexical resource.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including conditional and relative clauses. However, grammatical accuracy is weak throughout the text, featuring frequent errors such as subject-verb agreement issues ('each family member have', 'family business have'), missing articles ('face critical situation'), and tense inconsistencies ('if you done any mistakes'). These errors are frequent and occasionally require the reader to re-read sentences to grasp the intended meaning, which aligns with the Band 5 criteria.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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