Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-05

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)

Nowdays majority of individuals prefers to work for their own company or organization instead of doing work for private comapny or organization, that mindset changed whole life of many peoples, from my view self employed person has more disadvantages compare to working in private company.

One of the main reason to a person to self employed is more fledxiablity of time as well as freedom, because when a person do their work by their own instead of under the any manager so the will get full freedom to get rest as well as give time to their friends and familiy apart from that they get less work load and presure because there are no manager to give intructions and work load so they get mental relife

Secondly there are lot of disadvantages of self employed person compare to advantages, main thing which is very detrimental for person is income stability because when a individual do work for their own so they did not has stable monthly income its depands on how much time they gives to their business, whiles a salaried person who works for company gets their fixed salary on every fixed date of month, also they are responsiable to find work and givw their work to other employees wich were working under them, however need to think about other parts of business like marketing, finance, HRM, and others.

In conclusion, people are incresingly choosing self employment because it offers grater indepandace, flexibility and potentially higher earnings. Nevertheless, financial instability and additional responsibilities involved can make this type of employment challenging.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses the main parts of the prompt by discussing both the reasons why people choose self-employment and the potential disadvantages. However, the ideas remain somewhat limited and under-developed. For example, while the writer mentions time flexibility and freedom, the explanation relies on repetitive phrasing rather than extending the points with specific examples or deep analysis. The position is generally clear, but the lack of thorough development in the body paragraphs prevents a more complete exploration of the prompt. To reach the next level, the writer needs to fully extend and support all main ideas with relevant explanations and concrete examples.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

There is some basic organization apparent in the essay, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, but overall progression is lacking. The transitions between sentences and ideas feel mechanical and repetitive, heavily relying on basic connectors like 'secondly' and 'however'. Furthermore, referencing and paragraph structures are sometimes unclear; the second body paragraph awkwardly crams multiple disparate disadvantages—such as income stability, responsibilities over other employees, and administrative tasks like marketing—into a single lengthy, run-on sentence without clear logical grouping. To improve, the writer must implement a clearer overarching progression and manage cohesive devices more accurately and naturally.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary range is limited and minimally adequate for the task. There are noticeable errors in word choice, spelling, and word formation throughout the response, such as 'Nowdays', 'comapny', 'fledxiablity', 'relife', and 'indepandace'. The student attempts some less common terms like 'detrimental' and 'stability', but frequent inaccuracies in collocation and spelling cause some difficulty for the reader and impede smooth reading. To progress, the student should expand their working vocabulary, pay closer attention to word formation, and ensure accurate spelling of common academic terms.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer demonstrates a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on long, convoluted run-on sentences joined by commas rather than proper punctuation or conjunctions. Attempts at complex sentences are frequently faulty, leading to frequent errors in subject-verb agreement, articles, plurals, and clause structures, such as 'when a individual do work for their own so they did not has stable monthly income' and 'there are no manager to give intructions'. These persistent errors cause noticeable difficulty for the reader. To achieve a higher band, the writer must incorporate a wider variety of accurate complex structures and improve basic grammatical control.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.