Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-01

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)

In the recents, there has been a significant shift towards self-employment. Many people prefers to start self work instead of working for a company or an organization. This trend is driven by several factors, but it also have some disadvantages.

There are two main reasons why people are chosing self employment. First, they want freedom and flexibilty. Instead of going for 9 to 5 job they can work whenever they want. Moreover, self employed individuals can chooe thier own working hours, workplace and clients. For an instance, in Pakistan many individuals a working as a freelancer on different platforms such as Fiver and Upwork, earning in dollars while managing thier own time. Secondly, it helps people financially. A company give you a certain anf fixed amount of salary, which sometimes do not meet our standards. Whereas, self emlpoyed workers can earn money according to their skills and can a earn a good and decent amount of money. Further, this helps them to make their ife more stable and help their family financially.

Although, being self employed also has serious drawbacks. First one is financial insecurity. A company gives you a fixed salary. Whereas, being self employed can be stressfull, sometime you dont fine clients for month or two months. Where, a company give you satisfaction that you will be paid after a month. Another major drawback is lack of benefits. A company provides you health insurance, paid leaves and pension. Whereas, a self employed person has to handle eveything own theri own. Furthermore, company also provide you benefits like finding clients, marketing and accounting which can be veyr stressfull

In conclusion, although self employment is attractive, because you can handle everything. But it also have some drawbacks, which can be stressfull. Therefore, working for company also has some benfits of its own.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing both the reasons for choosing self-employment and its disadvantages, supported by relevant examples such as freelancing platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. The position is generally clear throughout. However, some ideas are more fully developed than others; for instance, the explanation of financial benefits is somewhat superficial, and the conclusion merely summarises points without adding any fresh perspective. To reach a higher band, the writer would need to fully develop every idea with extended explanations and deeper analysis.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay demonstrates a coherent overall arrangement with a clear logical structure where paragraphs are used to separate the introduction, reasons, disadvantages, and conclusion. Cohesive devices are used to signal progression, such as 'First', 'Secondly', and 'Although'. However, cohesion is occasionally faulty or mechanical, and referencing is not always clear, as seen with ambiguous pronoun usage ('Whereas, a company give you...'). To move to the next level, the writer should employ a wider range of cohesive devices more naturally and ensure smoother transitions between sentences and paragraphs.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The response uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items related to work and finance, such as 'freelancer', 'financial insecurity', and 'pension'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors that occur throughout the text, including 'recents', 'prefers', 'flexibilty', 'chooe', 'thier', 'stressfull', and 'dont fine'. While these errors do not severely impede communication, they restrict the score. To achieve a higher band, the writer needs to demonstrate greater precision in word choice, better control of word forms, and eliminate spelling mistakes.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer employs a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting structures with subordinate clauses like 'Instead of going for 9 to 5 job they can work whenever they want'. There are some errors in grammar and punctuation, such as missing articles ('going for 9 to 5 job'), subject-verb agreement issues ('Many people prefers', 'a company give you', 'this also have'), and faulty prepositional patterns. Fortunately, these errors rarely impede communication. To progress further, the writer must produce a greater proportion of error-free sentences when using complex structures and improve overall grammatical accuracy.

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