Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-09-25

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 last few decads, there was a culture of employment preferably in Government sectors. people thought that's the only way to secure the future. All students wanted to become professionalist. Some of them wanted to be a doctor, some wanted to be engineers, and few of them teachers. They thought those were the only professions to be a successful person in the future.

In 21st century, the mindsets of people totally changed. From there schooling they were well aware of future. Now a days students are well aware about the professions and the future oppertunities.Mostly students want to be the enterpnors and slef-employed. It is the only way to become rich and most successful in life. Self employment is very common in modran age. It is due to the multiple reasons. A few common reasons are the miss behaviour of the top management of organization, less competitive behaviour, low saleries, dishonesty with work, corruption in government level organisations, leg pulling culture, less appriciation and many more.

Due to these factors, the young minds can experience serious mental health issues like dipression, overthinking, and mental illness. These were the few reasons why people do not want to be an employee.

Besides many prons for example, mental satisfaction, great earning, bossy behaviour, and few more but, there are some cons of self-employment including big losses, due to bad quality of product bad reputation in the market, unavailability of skilled persons, less sucessfull bussines ideas ratios, also some health issue that can be fatal.

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 its potential disadvantages. The introduction contrasts past preferences for government or company jobs with current trends towards entrepreneurship. The body paragraphs outline multiple motivations for this shift, such as management issues, low salaries, and a desire for independence, while also acknowledging disadvantages like financial risks, product quality issues, and health concerns. However, some ideas lack sufficient depth and feel overly generalised or simplistic. For instance, stating that self-employment is 'the only way to become rich and most successful in life' is an extreme generalization. Furthermore, some points like 'bossy behaviour' are unclear in their context. Overall, the response meets the core prompt requirements but remains somewhat underdeveloped in its explanation of specific examples, placing it firmly at a Band 5.5 to 6 level.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The text is divided into four distinct paragraphs, attempting a logical progression from historical context to modern trends, reasons for self-employment, and finally disadvantages. However, paragraphing is poorly handled, with some paragraphs grouping disparate ideas together, and the overall structural flow is frequently disjointed. Cohesive devices are used minimally or inaccurately, such as the awkward transition 'From there schooling they were well aware of future' and the illogical contrast 'Besides many prons for example... but, there are some cons'. Referencing is occasionally unclear, and sentences often feel like a disconnected list of points rather than a cohesive argument. The logical organization breaks down frequently due to abrupt shifts in ideas, which restricts the text to a Band 5 for this criterion.

Lexical Resource: Band 4.5

The lexical resource is limited and displays frequent spelling and word-choice errors that impede readability. Examples of spelling and morphological errors include 'decads', 'professionalist', 'oppertunities', 'enterpnors', 'slef-employed', 'modran', 'saleries', 'appriciation', 'dipression', 'prons', 'sucessfull', and 'bussines'. The student attempts some less common vocabulary such as 'entrepreneurs' (misspelled as 'enterpnors') and 'misbehaviour', but the sheer volume of lexical inaccuracies strains the reader. While the range is minimally adequate to convey basic ideas about employment and business, the frequent inaccuracies in basic and intermediate words prevent the score from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

The response features a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but grammatical accuracy is very low throughout. There are persistent errors in tense usage ('In last few decads, there was a culture...'), article omission ('In 21st century', 'From there schooling'), and prepositional use. Sentence structures are often awkwardly constructed, as seen in 'Now a days students are well aware about the professions' and 'These were the few reasons why people do not want to be an employee.' Punctuation is also problematic, particularly in long, run-on sentences with incorrect comma splices like 'Besides many prons for example, mental satisfaction, great earning, bossy behaviour, and few more but, there are some cons...'. These frequent errors cause difficulty for the reader and reflect a weak control of basic and complex grammar.

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