Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · 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 5.5)

A lot of people choose to work by thier own like by starting a business, rather than doing jobs in a company or organization, this happens due to different reasons.

First of all, self employment means to work for them self nor for anyone else, self employment includes business, trading or a new startup which is started by the invidual himself to earn his life living, self employment include a lot of benefits, which might include no fix timing which means that there is no fix timing for thier work they can start working when ever and wherever they want , it may also include great amount of profit because there is not a single patner or employee whom you have to share your profit with beside these advantages self employment has also some disadvantages which might include work load which means that you are the only person doing the work, so only you have to handle all the work by your own self, forexample a shop owner has to open , clean and mange all the other things of his own shop by his own,if he had no employes.

On the other hand, having a job in company sounds intresting, you donot have to worry about sales or anything else you just have to do the the task that you have been assign to, and you can earn your living by salary at the end of the month beside these advantages, there are also some disadvantanges too, like your doing nothing for yourself all your strugle is going to the company and not yourself you will just get the salary at the end of the month even if your performace is very good.

In conclusion, both the aspects are good in their own way, they both have different advantages as well as disadvantages too, they both required efforts to grow. it may also depend person to person that what would they want to do.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing the reasons why people choose self-employment, such as flexible timing and higher profit potential, while also outlining disadvantages like heavy workload. A counter-perspective on traditional employment is also included. However, the ideas are somewhat repetitive and could be extended further with more concrete examples or deeper explanation. For instance, the discussion of disadvantages relies heavily on a single example of a shop owner. The position of the writer is generally clear throughout, aligning best with the Band 6 descriptor where all parts of the task are addressed, though some aspects are under-developed.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to structure the response into introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. However, cohesion is frequently faulty or mechanical. The sentences are heavily run-on, connected by commas rather than appropriate conjunctions or full stops, as seen in '...which means that there is no fix timing for thier work they can start working when ever and wherever they want...' Paragraphing is used to separate ideas, but internal transitions feel repetitive, frequently relying on phrases like 'beside these advantages'. Referencing is sometimes unclear due to poor punctuation and grammar, placing the response solidly at Band 5.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating terms such as 'self-employment', 'startup', 'profit', and 'employee'. However, there are numerous spelling and word-choice errors, such as 'thier', 'invidual', 'mange', 'employes', 'intresting', and 'strugle'. While these errors do not severely impede communication, they are frequent enough to prevent the score from reaching Band 6. The lexical range is minimally adequate, but precision is lacking, corresponding to a Band 5 performance.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writing demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but control over punctuation and sentence boundaries is very weak. The essay is characterized by run-on sentences, where multiple independent clauses are joined improperly with commas, such as '...having a job in company sounds intresting, you donot have to worry about sales or anything else you just have to do the the task that you have been assign to...' Frequent errors in tense, article usage, and spelling are present throughout. Because the structural errors cause frequent difficulty for the reader and prevent error-free sentences from dominating, a Band 5 is appropriate.

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.