Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-09-14
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 5.5)
Nowadaays, an increasing number of people prefer to become self employed, rather than working in someones company or organisation. This trends can be explained with several facors, although self employment also has also significant disadvantages.
One of the main reasons people choose self employed because of its freedom and flexibilty. If he or she works in the company or organisation than they cannot get freedom as much as they get from self employed. Self employed workers can decide their own working hour, and can choosed the project the are interested and also can maintained work life balance. For example, freelancer can work from home and can spend quality time with their family. Another main reason is the possibilites of earning more money. Employees usually recevies a fixed salary, but the self employed people can increase their income by expanding their business or clients. Additionally, many people prefering being their own boss because they can make their own decision without following company stricts rules and regulations.
Being a self empoyed not only have advantages there are some disadvantage too. The most significant disadvantage is scarce on financial condition. Being a self empolyed is harsh in which the client and the project are fewer in number. sometime the freelancer have a single client or no client in the month so, they struggle to find new clients. If they do not find any clients than they can face economic problems in upcoming days, while running business is a responsibility. A self employed person cannot manage all the department, this can lead to stress.
In conclusion, people easily attracted to the self employment because of its flexibility, independence and for income. But there are some key points to be concern, like financially inconsistant, increased responsilblity, increase working hours etc. Therefore, they should think about both advantage and disadvantage before choosing carreer path.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The response addresses all parts of the task, examining both the reasons for choosing self-employment and its disadvantages. The writer presents clear ideas, such as freedom, flexibility, and the potential for higher earnings as reasons, and financial inconsistency and increased responsibility as disadvantages. However, some ideas are a bit repetitive and under-developed, particularly in the discussion of financial struggles. Examples are provided, such as the freelancer working from home, but they lack depth. The position is clear throughout, aligning with the descriptors for Band 6.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The essay has a coherent overall arrangement with a clear paragraph structure separating the introduction, reasons, disadvantages, and conclusion. However, cohesion is sometimes faulty or mechanical. For instance, the transition 'Being a self empoyed not only have advantages there are some disadvantage too' is awkward. Referencing and conjunctions are occasionally imprecise, as seen in sentences like 'If they do not find any clients than they can face economic problems in upcoming days, while running business is a responsibility.' Progression is visible, but the mechanical links place this firmly at Band 6.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common lexical items such as 'financial inconsistency', 'freelancer', and 'work life balance'. However, there are numerous spelling errors ('Nowadaays', 'facors', 'empoyed', 'inconsistant') and word-choice inaccuracies ('scarce on financial condition', 'prefering being their own boss'). Despite these errors, meaning is generally clear and communication is not impeded, which is characteristic of Band 6 performance.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as conditional structures ('If he or she works...'). However, there are frequent grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ('This trends can be explained', 'Being a self empoyed not only have advantages'), awkward phrasing ('the possibilites of earning more money'), and punctuation errors. These errors do not seriously impede communication, but they restrict the score to a Band 5.5 or 6.0. Given the mix of correct simple structures and attempted complex ones, a Band 6.0 is appropriate.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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