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)
People prefer to work on their own instead of being employed by a company or organisation thesedays. Although being self-employed might sometime brings unsurety of next paycheck most people consider working by their own mostly because of independency and flexibility of working hours.
Being self-employed comes with a lot of challeges, struggle and exposure as almost almost all the task requires proper planning, patience, ideas, maket, strategy to grow. Just like a tree requires proper nourishing before it provides fruits, a self formed vision also requires numerous time, dedication and dirctions to be established. Having said that, once the business starts to boom all the profits belongs to ownself.
On one hand, self-employment lets people work on their own time, from any place they want, one don't need to worry about leave grant, office hours; they have the leverage to work on their work time schedule whenever they want and have accessto all the profit. For example, when a person works for the company they have to work as per the condition and order of superior any defiance will have direct affect on the salary where as working on own means they are the boss of themself and work as per their deisre.
On the t
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0
The response attempts to address both parts of the prompt, discussing reasons for choosing self-employment such as independence and flexibility, as well as some disadvantages like challenges, struggle, and the uncertainty of a paycheck. However, the essay is incomplete and breaks off mid-sentence at the end. Furthermore, the length requirement has not been met, as the response contains only 206 words, falling significantly short of the 250-word minimum. Because the ideas are underdeveloped and the task is cut short, the response falls into the Band 5 descriptors, which note that tasks are addressed only partially with limited and underdeveloped ideas.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
The essay demonstrates some basic organisation, opening with an introductory overview and attempting to structure paragraphs around the reasons and disadvantages of self-employment. However, paragraphing is somewhat erratic; the second paragraph combines general introductory background with specific disadvantages and philosophical thoughts before breaking into separate points. Cohesive devices are used, but they can be repetitive or awkward, such as 'Having said that, once...' and 'On one hand...'. Referencing is occasionally unclear, as seen in phrases like 'the profits belongs to ownself.' There is no clear overall progression due to the incomplete nature of the text, limiting the coherence to a Band 5 level.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The writer attempts to use a range of vocabulary relevant to the topic, including words such as 'self-employed', 'independency', 'flexibility', and 'strategy'. However, there are numerous word choice and spelling errors throughout the text, such as 'thesedays' (these days), 'unsurety' (uncertainty), 'challeges' (challenges), 'maket' (market), 'dirctions' (directions), and 'accessto' (access to). These errors reflect a limited control of word formation and spelling. While communication is not entirely impeded, the frequency of lexical inaccuracies places the response firmly within the Band 5 category for vocabulary.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including conditional and subordinate clauses like 'Although being self-employed might sometime brings unsurety...' and 'For example, when a person works for the company...'. However, grammatical accuracy is weak. There are frequent errors in subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'might sometime brings', 'all the task requires'), article usage (e.g., 'market', 'direct affect'), and punctuation or run-on structures. Additionally, the abrupt end of the essay leaves grammatical units unfinished. These frequent errors cause some difficulty for the reader, aligning the grammar score with Band 5.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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