Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-09-19

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)

Nowadays, the majority of the population prefers to do their own work either as a freelancer or starting a business rather than doing work for a company or organization. There are many factors contributing to increasing this perspective including an independence in decision power and flexibility in working hours. In contrast to this, there are many disadvantages associated with self-employment.

One of the primary reasons which influences people in this way is the decision power independence. Employers have to seek permission of the company's CEO before initiating any new task. In addition workers are required to wait for the approval of their organization to do something for the betterment of the company, In fact, employs of the organization are bound to follow the instructions of the head; consequently, it causes the lacking of the ability of matureness in decisions.

Another factor which contributes to the rapid acceptance of this idea is flexibility in working hours. The freelancer can do work on a time which is perfectly aligned with his timetable and suitability. Furthermore, it can provide relief to a person that gets pressurized by fixed working hours.

Despite having considerable reasons to pursue self-employment. It also has many adverse effects. The stability and maturity in decision power generally comes with group work rather than freelancing or others. People can get the motivational remarks after the completion of their tasks which can boost their encouragement and confidence to achieve their future goals more efficiently. Although people doing self-work are more flexible in their working hours, it can also affect their stability of monthly or annual income in case of natural disasters. In fact, in the post-COVID era, self-employed individuals are facing more challenges in their financial stability than others.

Overall, self work has a lot of understandable reasons which causes the promotion of this case, however its drawbacks are also there which required a proper solutions by the government or authorities

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the reasons why people choose self-employment and the disadvantages associated with it. The student presents clear ideas regarding decision-making power and flexibility in working hours as primary reasons, while noting financial instability and the loss of group collaboration as disadvantages. However, some arguments lack full extension and suffer from minor logic gaps, such as the claim that employment causes a 'lacking of the ability of matureness in decisions'. Overall, the position is generally clear throughout, aligning well with the Band 6 descriptor where all parts are addressed, though some ideas are slightly under-developed.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a logical progression of ideas. Paragraphing is used sufficiently to separate the introduction, individual body paragraphs covering reasons and disadvantages, and the conclusion. Cohesive devices are employed to connect points, as seen with transitions like 'In addition', 'Furthermore', and 'Despite having considerable reasons'. However, cohesion is occasionally mechanical or faulty, and referencing is at times unclear, such as the ambiguous pronoun reference in 'its drawbacks are also there which required a proper solutions'. These issues place the response firmly in Band 6.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items and phrases such as 'freelancer', 'self-employment', and 'post-COVID era'. However, there are noticeable word-choice and collocation errors throughout the text, including 'decision power independence' instead of 'independence in decision-making', 'employes' (spelling error for 'employees'), and 'lacking of the ability of matureness'. While these errors occasionally distract the reader, they do not impede overall communication. The lexical range and frequency of errors are characteristic of Band 6.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The writer uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating relative clauses and conditional structures such as 'People can get the motivational remarks after the completion of their tasks which can boost...' and 'in case of natural disasters'. However, there are frequent grammatical errors and awkward phrasing throughout, such as sentence fragments ('Despite having considerable reasons to pursue self-employment. It also has many adverse effects.'), subject-verb agreement issues ('drawbacks... which required'), and preposition misuses. Although these errors do not severely impede communication, they restrict the grammar score to Band 6 due to a lack of consistent control over complex structures.

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