Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-09-16

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)

In modern world most of the folks prefer to be their own boss, rather then working like employe for organisation .

on the one hand, most people believe that the do no want job because they reckon that business has finacial freedom or self respect. furthermore they prefer to be their own boss not like to be workers like if you are business person then you have freedom to go for a trip andyou have time for your close persons such as family and friends. on the other hand business provide self development in addition it is beneficial for comunication skill and for gain confidence . for instance, if you have a shop then in a day you have to deal with many individuals and it is good for your future.

moreover, it also has some drawbacks such as sometime self employes are not happy because like if you are doing business then in some mothe you faced finacial problem because some areas people's are not setisfied wuth your products then it is seriouse problem or if you are doing startup then you faced lot's of pain and stress for example, in last year my one friend doing startup and he has money but at the and he has no employement then he was worried about that this is major problems

in contrast , altough self employed has many advantage like freedom but it has also some drawbacks such as you facsd strresfull days.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response addresses the two main parts of the prompt, discussing reasons why people choose self-employment and the potential disadvantages. However, ideas are generally limited, repetitive, and under-developed. For instance, the discussion on freedom and self-development remains superficial without substantial elaboration or convincing examples. Furthermore, the length requirement of 250 words is not met, as the text contains only 244 words. This shortfall has been factored into the score. While a position is discernible, the lack of depth and the failure to meet the minimum word count prevent this response from achieving a higher band. To improve, you should expand your arguments with specific, detailed explanations and well-developed examples.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay displays some basic organisation with the use of cohesive markers such as 'on the one hand', 'on the other hand', and 'moreover'. However, the overall progression is impeded by poor punctuation, a lack of sentence boundaries, and a confusing paragraph structure. Many sentences run into one another without proper capitalization or full stops, which makes the logical flow difficult to follow. Paragraphing is attempted, but the grouping of ideas is disjointed—for instance, mixing personal development with the disadvantages of startups in a messy way. Referencing is sometimes unclear, and cohesive devices are often repetitive rather than flexible. To reach a higher band, you need to use clear sentence boundaries, punctuation, and logical paragraph breaks.

Lexical Resource — Band 4.5

The vocabulary used is basic and repetitive, frequently relying on simple terms like 'people', 'job', 'money', and 'problem'. There are numerous spelling errors throughout the text, including 'employe', 'finacial', 'comunication', 'sometime', 'mothe', 'setisfied', 'wuth', 'seriouse', 'lot's', 'at the and', and 'strresfull'. These errors and the narrow lexical range restrict the score. While the writer attempts some less common phrases like 'self-development' and 'financial freedom', the frequent lexical inaccuracies and spelling mistakes occasionally impede communication and demonstrate limited control over word choice and collocation.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.0

The response relies heavily on simple sentence structures, and attempts at complex or compound sentences often result in severe grammatical errors and run-on sentences. There are frequent issues with subject-verb agreement ('self employes are not happy', 'some areas people's are not setisfied'), incorrect verb tenses ('you faced finacial problem'), and missing articles. Punctuation is largely neglected, with sentences strung together using commas incorrectly or lacking terminal full stops altogether. These persistent errors across most sentences cause considerable difficulty for the reader and reflect a limited command of grammatical structures and accuracy.

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