Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-07

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 today's modern era, where employment is very important to earn livelihood. Many individuals argue that being self-employed is way more better working in a company or organization. Although, there are many disadvantages such as financial stress and more working hours, it's advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages.

On the one hand, there are many problems regarding self-employment. First of all, it could be very stressful to manage huge amount of different tasks. There could also financial stress on self-employed people because they have to maintain everything on their own. It could also leave huge negative affects on the person's health such as their working pattern could be disturbed. Self-employment also comes with a huge amount of responsibility. For instance, during low sales, it could be very difficult for a person to manage their overall financial expenses. In addition, self-employed people have to work overtime to complete customers orders.

On the other hand, self-employment comes with a number of huge benefits. First of all, there are huge chances of growth and success. Besides in employment, people usually get a fixed amount of income but self-employment gives ability to an individual to earn more. There is no pressure of task completion on a self-employed person. Moreover, they also have flexible timetables to work. Self-employed people can do whatever they want. For example, people with self-employment can work according to their choice.

In conclusion, although there are many responsibilities and financial stress that self-employment offers, there are huge number of benefits that self-employed person can have such as mind satisfaction, more income generation, flexible working hours and more chances of growth.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both questions and maintain a clear overall view that self-employment has benefits despite its drawbacks. The disadvantages are supported with relevant points, including financial pressure during low sales and the need to work overtime. However, the reasons people choose this path are less fully explained: higher earning potential and flexible timetables are mentioned, but the response does not explain why these features attract people or develop them with a specific example. The claim that there is “no pressure of task completion” is also unclear and sits uneasily beside the earlier point about overtime. To strengthen the response, explain the motivations more precisely and develop each main idea with a clear cause, consequence, or illustrative example.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a coherent overall arrangement: an introduction, a paragraph on disadvantages, a paragraph on benefits, and a conclusion. Signposting such as “On the one hand,” “On the other hand,” and “In conclusion” makes the main stages easy to follow. However, the progression within paragraphs is sometimes mechanical, with repeated openings such as “First of all” and “It could also.” Some links between ideas are not fully clear; for example, “Besides in employment” does not clearly connect the comparison about fixed income, and the statement about having no task-completion pressure conflicts with the discussion of overtime. Use more precise transitions and organise each paragraph around a clear central point, then explain how its supporting details relate.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “financial stress,” “responsibility,” “flexible timetables,” and “growth and success.” However, the range is limited by repeated general words such as “huge,” “people,” and “self-employment,” and several combinations are unnatural or imprecise. For instance, “earn livelihood,” “negative affects on the person's health,” and “more income generation” do not express the ideas naturally; “affects” is also the wrong word form in this context. These choices do not prevent understanding, but they make parts of the response less fluent and precise. Build a wider set of natural collocations for income, workload, autonomy, and business risk, and check word forms carefully.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt a mix of simple and complex forms, including a concession in the introduction (“Although…”) and a conditional example (“during low sales, it could be very difficult…”). Meaning is generally understandable, but some errors occur in sentence formation, articles, agreement, and punctuation. The opening is a sentence fragment: “In today's modern era, where employment is very important to earn livelihood.” The phrase “there could also financial stress” is missing a verb, while “a huge amount of responsibility” and “a huge number of benefits” show inconsistent article or number control. The comma after “Although” is also unnecessary, and the first sentence’s comparison is not grammatically formed. Practise complete sentence structures and review articles, singular/plural agreement, and punctuation in longer sentences.

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