Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-08-06

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Nowadays many people choose to be self-employed, rather than to work for a company or organisation.

Why might this be the case?

What could be the disadvantages of being self-employed?

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

Student answer (Band 6.0)

Employment has became a crucial part of an individual's life that is indispensable. Some people believe that self-employment is better, while some part of society argues that working under a company is a better option. The disadvantage of this outweigh advantages. The following paragraphs will state both benefits and drawbacks.

To commence with the pitfalls, the prominent reason of this stance is that create more stress than a person working under someone's guidance. As an individual who is self-employed has greater responsibility to manage all their work alone rather than having employees to work for them, causing a tons of burden. The another prominent pitfall of being self-employed is that it requires a lot of personal investment in terms of money and involvement, causing a financial risk if the business fails. This can also include less time being spend with family as a person working alone needs more attention to the work.

Moving further, another prominent downside of working for oneself rather than an being employer is that it can reduce the employee benefits such as extra pay, holiday leaves and health benefits. For an example, when an person work under a company, they get the upper hand such as sick leave while the person working for oneself can not risk a leave as they have invested their earnings to not work under someone else.

Conversely, there are many profits of working for oneself which includes asset like more money profits and complete control over your independence and business. Another prominent reason of being self-employed is better that it gives an individual opportunity to follow their passion and develop in their field of liking.

To conclude, there might be many downsides for self-employment, nevertheless, there are plethora of perks. Therefore, self -employment can be a better option if an individual can balance their business and personal life equally which requires a lot of enrolment and acceptance.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses both parts of the prompt: reasons for choosing self-employment and the potential disadvantages. However, the development of ideas is somewhat inconsistent. While the disadvantages are explored with specific points like financial risk and loss of benefits, the reasons for choosing self-employment are under-developed and lack depth, appearing only briefly in the penultimate paragraph. The introduction contains a confusing statement, 'The disadvantage of this outweigh advantages,' which contradicts the prompt's focus and the subsequent content. To reach a higher band, you should ensure that your position is clearly established and that both parts of the prompt receive balanced, detailed support.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into paragraphs, and there is a logical progression of ideas. You use some cohesive devices such as 'To commence with,' 'Moving further,' and 'Conversely' to signal transitions. However, the use of these devices is sometimes mechanical or slightly unnatural. For instance, the transition 'The another prominent pitfall' is grammatically incorrect and disrupts the flow. Additionally, the referencing is occasionally unclear, such as in the phrase 'the prominent reason of this stance,' where the antecedent is not explicitly defined. Improving the variety and accuracy of your linking words will help the essay read more smoothly.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, but there are several instances of awkward collocations and word choice errors. Examples include 'enrolment and acceptance' (which does not fit the context of work-life balance) and 'money profits' (which is redundant). You attempt to use some topic-specific vocabulary like 'financial risk' and 'employee benefits,' but the range is limited. There are also minor errors in word formation, such as 'an being employer' instead of 'being an employer.' To improve, focus on learning common collocations and using more precise terminology to express your ideas.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally impede clarity. Common issues include subject-verb agreement ('Employment has became'), article usage ('an person'), and prepositional errors ('reason of this stance'). Some sentences are poorly constructed, such as 'the prominent reason of this stance is that create more stress,' which lacks a clear subject. While the meaning is generally understandable, the frequency of these errors prevents the response from reaching a higher band. Focusing on basic sentence construction and proofreading for subject-verb agreement would be highly beneficial.

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