Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-09-29

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)

At present time, a large number of people decided to be self-employed, rather than working in a company or an organisation. The case might be that they want to work independently instead of working under any authority. In my opinion, a serious disadvantage of being sel-employed is that the salary can be irregular often, whereas working for a company or organization generally provides a more stable and predictable salary.

In modern society, people are attracted to working independently. Working for oneself provides greater flexibilty, more control over working hours and are not directly supervised by any employer. For example, when someone running his own shop, he can set the rules, working hours and money management without any outer control. he has his own control and flexibility over his shop.

However, working independently has not positive effect always because one might face salary crisis and also, may not receive financial compensation when they face economical losses. For instance, a shop owner's income depends on his monthly sales. If the sale is not good in any month, he might face financial crisis and there is no authority to provide him any financial compensation if his shop faces any personal economical loss. On the other hand, companies or organizations are obliged to pay their employees a regular monthly salary. Additionally, the financial losses are borne by the company rather than by individual employees.

In conclusion, a significant number of people want to be self-employed rather than work in a company or an organization. Though working independently provides working hour flexibility and con

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by explaining why people choose self-employment and outlining the disadvantages, such as irregular income and financial risk. Your position is clear from the beginning and maintained throughout the essay. Ideas are extended and supported with relevant explanations and examples, such as the comparison between a shop owner and a company employee. However, some arguments could be further developed with deeper analysis rather than relying on slightly repetitive examples. Overall, the content fully meets the requirements for Band 6.5 to 7.0, and the descriptor for Band 6.0 is well-matched here as the ideas are relevant, though some parts feel slightly restricted in development.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear logical progression. Paragraphing is used appropriately to divide the introduction, reasons, disadvantages, and conclusion. Cohesive devices are employed to guide the reader through your arguments, such as 'For example', 'However', and 'On the other hand'. However, referencing and cohesion are occasionally faulty or mechanical, as seen in minor structural shifts between paragraphs. Additionally, the final sentence of your essay cuts off mid-word ('con'), which affects overall cohesion at the very end. This places the response firmly within the Band 6 territory.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'self-employed', 'financial compensation', and 'predictable salary'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word choice errors, such as 'sel-employed', 'flexibilty', 'money management without any outer control', and 'salary crisis'. These lexical inaccuracies do not impede communication, but they restrict the score. To achieve a higher band, greater precision in word choice and correct spelling of key terms are required, along with more sophisticated collocation control.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures. However, there are several grammatical errors throughout the text, including tense and agreement issues such as 'a large number of people decided' instead of 'decide', and 'working hours and are not directly supervised' which lacks parallelism. Punctuation and capitalization errors also appear, such as the lowercase 'he' in 'For example, when someone running his own shop... he has his own control'. While these errors do not impede overall communication, they prevent the essay from reaching a higher band due to frequency.

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

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