Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-08-12

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 4.5)

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

This statement has many advantages and many disadvantages.

The main and major disadvantage is that people leave education institution because they know that in our country they is a big problem of job,case of unemployement,that is a reason that people is not involved in education institution.They try to do they own business,her own father business.

in our education institution they is not a practical work the disadvantage is that student do not have any skill just a knowlege and it can face many difficulties and problems and cannot find a good job according to their own need.

so in our country people choose to be self employed and i also agree this statement that we should be self employed we have to do our business, but we need to complete our graduation and after then according to over own field we have to start our business.

The advantage is that we are graduated ad well as we have our own business.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response4.0
Coherence and Cohesion4.5
Lexical Resource4.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy4.0
Overall4.5

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The response fails to meet the minimum word count requirement of 250 words, reaching only 180 words. This significantly impacts the development of ideas. While you attempt to address why people choose self-employment and the disadvantages, the arguments are underdeveloped and repetitive. For instance, you mention the lack of practical skills in education, but you do not fully explore the disadvantages of self-employment itself, such as financial instability or lack of benefits. The position is somewhat unclear due to the lack of depth and the brevity of the response. To improve, you must expand on your points with specific examples and ensure all parts of the prompt are addressed with sufficient detail.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.5

The essay lacks a clear structure. There is no introduction or conclusion, and the paragraphing is inconsistent. The logical progression of ideas is difficult to follow because the sentences are often disjointed. While you use some basic cohesive devices like 'so' and 'but', they are used in a limited and sometimes repetitive way. The referencing is also unclear at times, such as in the phrase 'i also agree this statement'. To improve, you should use a clear paragraph structure (introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion) and use a wider range of linking words to connect your ideas more fluidly.

Lexical Resource — Band 4.5

Your vocabulary is quite limited and repetitive. You frequently use basic terms like 'disadvantage', 'problem', and 'job'. There is little evidence of less common vocabulary or idiomatic expressions. Additionally, there are several word-choice errors, such as 'education institution' instead of 'educational institutions' and 'case of unemployement' which is not used correctly in context. To improve, you should focus on learning topic-specific vocabulary related to employment and business, and practice using synonyms to avoid repeating the same words throughout your writing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.0

There are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text that often impede communication. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('they is a big problem'), incorrect pronoun usage ('they own business'), and missing articles. The sentence structures are mostly simple, and there is a lack of complex sentence forms. Punctuation is also inconsistent, with some run-on sentences and missing commas. To improve, you need to focus on basic sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, and the correct use of articles. Practicing complex sentence structures, such as using relative clauses or conditional sentences, will also help increase your score.

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

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