Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-18

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)

Amoung numerous of countries , family members work together in their family buisness. Although this trend offers considerable benefits, it also presents certain drawbacks.

One of the primary advantage is that family members can trust and support each other. Family membersusually know each other well and can work together easily. they can also share responsibilities and support one another during difficult situation. Another ,major benefit is that family buisnesses can provide employement oppurtunities. For example A family can open a buisness where parents manage the buisness and their children help with costumer service.

Despite of these benefits there is some notable drawbacks. one of the significant disadvantage is that personal relationships can create conflict at work. family members may disagree about how to spend money or make important decisions. Furthermore, some family buisnesses may hire relatives instead of more qualified workers which can effect the quality of their service As a result the buisness may not grow successfully. therefore family members can be against from each other.

In conclusion, family buisnesses offer severalbenefits such as trust teamwork and employement oppurtunities. However they can also lead to personal conflicts and poor management. In my opinion family buisness can be successful if every one shares responsibilities farly and make decisions professionally and the other major thing is thay if parents wants to start buisness they should educate their children for successful buisness.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.0
Coherence and Cohesion6.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

You address both sides of the question by discussing trust, support and employment opportunities, then identifying workplace conflict and the risk of hiring less-qualified relatives. Your conclusion gives a position—that family businesses can succeed if they are managed professionally—but the answer to whether advantages outweigh disadvantages is not stated clearly enough, and several ideas remain brief. For example, the employment example is relevant, but you do not explain how it demonstrates an overall advantage. The response contains 221 words, so it is 29 words below the 250-word minimum; the eight words copied from the prompt are not counted. Develop your reasons with specific explanation or an example, and state your comparative judgement directly.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear overall arrangement: an introduction, a paragraph on advantages, a paragraph on disadvantages, and a conclusion. This makes the main line of discussion easy to follow. You also use linking expressions such as “Although,” “Furthermore,” “As a result,” and “In conclusion” to signal relationships between ideas. However, some connections are mechanical or unclear. “Therefore family members can be against from each other” does not clearly follow from the point about business growth, and the conclusion repeats the earlier list rather than bringing the comparison together. Improve progression by explaining how each example supports the paragraph’s main point, and use clearer referencing and transitions between cause and result.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “responsibilities,” “qualified workers,” “conflict,” and “management.” There are also attempts at more precise expressions, such as “employment opportunities” and “personal relationships.” However, the range is limited and several spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable, including “Amoung,” “buisness,” “oppurtunities,” and “costumer service.” Some phrases are also unnatural or unclear, particularly “against from each other” and “poor management” as a broad conclusion without further explanation. These errors sometimes make the reader pause. Check spelling carefully and learn common collocations for business topics, such as “resolve disagreements” and “make professional decisions.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and complex sentence forms, including the concession in “Although this trend offers considerable benefits” and the conditional idea in “family businesses can be successful if…”. The overall meaning is usually recoverable, but errors occur frequently and some sentences are difficult to process. Examples include “One of the primary advantage,” “Family membersusually know,” and “if every one shares responsibilities farly and make decisions professionally,” where agreement, spacing, and sentence construction need attention. Capitalisation and punctuation are also inconsistent, as in “they” after a full stop and the missing punctuation in “For example A family.” Practise checking subject–verb agreement, articles, sentence boundaries, and parallel verb forms.

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