Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-09-18

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 5.0)

In today's rapidly evolving world, working structure of employees has been transformed, as a substantial number of individuals opting for self-emplyed work instead of working for industries and companies. This essay will discuss contributing factors and potential drawbacks for this development.

To commence with causes, one of the underlying factors is discrimination and prejudice towards past colloegue. Since a vast amount of professional cannot build positive interpersonal relationshps with other employees. Therefore, they may leave competent employment opportunities, and prefer to develop thier own occupation. Another major reason is unfavourable amount of salary and revenu along with lack of educational skills. Due to the fact that, a significant proportion of the population especially destitue and disadvantaged communities do not constitute competitive graduate degrees and certificates, to be recruited in the industries. Therefore, they cannot secure well-paid jobs, and jobs with lower salaries could not be abundant to compete with contemporary escalated cost of living. As a consequence, these standards of living foresee a hike in demand to construct their own workplace. For instance, according a report by the organisation called WTO- World Trade Organisation, depicted in more the 36 developed countries comprised a considerable amount of traders and businessman, who have allevited their poverty and built social mobility.

However, despite having myriad benefits, this expansion of businesses causes certain drawbacks. One significant disadvantage is fluctuation of income.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response addresses the two main prompts by discussing causes such as workplace issues and lack of graduate degrees, alongside disadvantages like the fluctuation of income. However, the essay is incomplete, stopping abruptly in the second disadvantage. Furthermore, the length requirement of 250 words is not met, as the response contains only 227 words. Additionally, some arguments appear slightly unusual or tangential, such as claiming that people become self-employed due to a lack of educational skills or workplace discrimination, which limits the overall depth of task response. Ideas are partially developed but remain truncated due to the abrupt ending and under-length nature of the submission. Overall, these shortcomings restrict the task achievement grade to a Band 5.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay demonstrates some basic organisation, opening with a clear introductory paragraph outlining the essay's structure. Transitional phrases like 'To commence with causes' and 'Another major reason' are employed to guide the reader through the body paragraphs. However, paragraphing is underdeveloped because the second body paragraph is cut off prematurely after just one sentence, preventing a fully developed logical progression. Referencing and cohesive devices are occasionally mechanical or slightly confusing, such as the transition from discrimination to educational qualifications within the same argument. While overall coherence is maintained for the first half of the text, the abrupt termination of the response affects the overall logical flow, resulting in a Band 5.5 score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a range of vocabulary with words like 'evolutionary', 'substantial', 'disadvantaged', and 'fluctuation'. However, there are numerous spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text, including 'emplyed' instead of employed, 'colloegue' instead of colleagues, 'professional' used as a noun plural, and 'revenu' instead of revenue. Other expressions such as 'unfavourable amount of salary' are unnatural. Although the vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey basic ideas and attempts less common lexical items, the frequency of spelling mistakes and awkward collocations keeps the lexical resource score at Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, incorporating subordinate clauses introduced by 'Since', 'Due to the fact that', and 'Despite having'. However, grammatical accuracy is weak throughout the text. There are significant errors in clause construction, such as fragment sentences ('Since a vast amount of professional cannot build...'), missing subjects or verbs, and awkward prepositional phrases like 'depicted in more the 36 developed countries'. Punctuation and article usage also show frequent lapses. Because attempts at complex structures are frequently faulty and cause some difficulty for the reader, this merits a Band 5.0.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.