Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-09-20

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 recent years, self-employed has become a increaingly important issue in many societies, it is due to the fact that it provide you a freedom to spend your time according to your routine. It is possible to claim that majority of individuals are shifting company and corporation to work as a enterprenure. In my opinion it has both pros and cons, in this essay i shall explain my point of view by analyzing the arguments in varoius prospective.

One of the most frequently cited argument in favor of being working for yourself is that its time saving, this is because it provide comfort zone as result individuals do their other daily task. Futhermore, it gives people freedom and make their on decision. Another thing is that, diversity is the beauty of nature and exposure to new horizon. Last but not the least, it offer various benifits such as improve thinking ability.

Being self-employed there are several cons, one of the primary casue is that work-load, this is due to working alone on multiple task consume more time, as result people gone through mental fatigue and feel tired. Secondly, it trigger stress and breakdown tradional family structure due to working non-stop. Thirdly, it leads to social isolation and job displacement via automation. Lastly, it can reduce face to face intrection through which people lose their confidence.

To conclude, I consider that self-employed is a integral part of overall development of individual. I strongly recommend that people and Government should work togather. Only by addressing these challenges head-n wo hope achieve a sustainable balance in future.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.0

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, discussing both the reasons why people choose self-employment and the potential disadvantages. The writer presents a clear position and supports ideas with relevant arguments, such as time management, flexibility, workload stress, and social isolation. However, some ideas remain slightly under-developed, and the arguments can be repetitive or overly generalised without specific real-world examples. For instance, the mention of diversity as the beauty of nature is somewhat vague in the context of self-employment. The essay covers the requirements reasonably well, aligning most closely with the Band 6 descriptor for Task Achievement.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with clear paragraphing separating the introduction, reasons, disadvantages, and conclusion. However, cohesion is frequently faulty and mechanical. There are noticeable punctuation errors and run-on sentences, such as comma splices in the introduction ('...in many societies, it is due to the fact that...'). Referencing is sometimes unclear, and cohesive devices are occasionally over-used or inaccurate, such as 'Last but not the least' and abrupt transitional phrases. These issues place the response firmly in Band 5 for Coherence and Cohesion.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student attempts a range of vocabulary appropriate for the topic, including terms like 'self-employed', 'enterprenure', 'flexibility', and 'isolation'. However, there are numerous spelling and word choice errors throughout the text, such as 'increaingly' instead of increasingly, 'provide you a freedom', 'varoius prospective', 'casue', and 'intrection'. Less common vocabulary is attempted with notable inaccuracy. While communication is generally maintained despite these errors, the lexical control corresponds to Band 5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response contains a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but attempts at complex structures are frequently faulty. There are recurrent grammatical errors throughout the essay, including missing articles, incorrect verb forms ('is due to working alone... consume more time'), and punctuation errors. For example, '...people gone through mental fatigue...' contains a tense error. Although the meaning is usually clear enough to follow, the high frequency of grammatical inaccuracies keeps the performance at a Band 5 level.

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

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