Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-12

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)

People nowadays choose to be self-employed rather than to work for a company or organisation because most of the people doesnot see their future when working under someone and some people choose self emplyment to work comfortably without any stress. Stressfull and toxic work culture is also an issue.

In the first case Some people thinks that rather than to use their skills and competance for someone's company or organization to grow and make money he/she work for their selves to grow. for instance my friend was working with a constrution comapany and then he decided to quit job and create his own construction comapny and he is a very successfull builder now.

The next important point is that people need comfort and peace in life. They hate coperate life and fixed working hours. My brother is a good example of it as he was working in a software engineering firm but he was so fed up with the job that he decided to work whenever he likes so created a profile on fiver app and start taking orders online.

Now the last but not least reason for quiting job is the toxic work cultures and office politics. There are many cases in which office politics and stresses can even cause a suicide. for example there was a case in india that an employee made a suicide attempt becuase his promotion was suspended.

Now Let us take a look at some disadvantages of self employment. When working as self employed a person doesnot have job security. Tough competition in the market.

My conclusion is that as people are now more towards being self employed keeping in mind that there are certain difficulties in it because now people want to come out of that job bubble and want to prove their worth in the market. Keeping all that bad things like stressful working, toxic work culture, office politics and bosses anger far away from their life.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both questions: you give several reasons for self-employment, including autonomy, comfort and dissatisfaction with workplace culture, and you mention job insecurity and competition as disadvantages. The examples about your friend and brother help make the reasons relevant. However, the disadvantages are only named, not explained, so this part is much less developed than the reasons. The conclusion mainly repeats the benefits and workplace problems rather than weighing the drawbacks or clearly summarising both sides. To strengthen the response, explain how insecure income or competition affects self-employed workers and support each point with a specific consequence or example.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure, with an introduction, separate paragraphs for reasons, a paragraph on disadvantages and a conclusion. Sequencing phrases such as “In the first case” and “The next important point” help signal the order of ideas. However, progression is weakened by mechanical transitions, including “Now the last but not least,” and the disadvantages paragraph is abrupt: “Tough competition in the market” is left as a fragment rather than developed into a connected explanation. Some links between ideas are also unclear, particularly in the conclusion, where several points are listed without showing how they relate. Use clearer topic sentences and connect each claim to its explanation and example.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “job security,” “fixed working hours,” “office politics” and “toxic work culture.” These phrases help communicate the main ideas, but the range is limited and several word-choice, spelling and collocation errors make the writing less precise. Examples include “work comfortably without any stress,” “create his own construction company” and “made a suicide attempt”; more natural phrasing would improve clarity and tone. Spelling errors such as “competance,” “comapny” and “becuase” are also noticeable. Build a more accurate range for discussing autonomy, financial uncertainty and workplace pressure, and check spelling carefully.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response attempts both simple and longer sentence forms, for example the sentence beginning “because most of the people…” and the example about your brother. However, complex sentences are often faulty, and frequent errors in agreement, verb forms, articles and sentence boundaries sometimes make the reader work to understand the meaning. Examples include “most of the people doesnot see,” “some people thinks,” and “he decided to work whenever he likes so created a profile.” There are also fragments, such as “Tough competition in the market,” and inconsistent capitalisation after full stops. Practise building accurate sentences with one main clause and a clearly connected explanation, then check subject–verb agreement and tense consistency.

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