Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-16

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 modern days, the significant number of people prefer to be self-employed, rather than to work for other companies. This trend is mainly caused by social media influences. However, I firmly believe that, being self-employed has disadvantages including, the risks of failure in work.

One major cause why people prefer choose to be self-employed is that many individuals post their business achievements in social media platform, from where people are beings influenced to do own business, rather than worl for others. Nowadays, people get motivation from simple social media post and want to build their own business empire. For instance, many facebook post and stories demonstrates how the person from midest background become an independent and become rich by being self-employed. Consequently, significant people get motivated to left their job and start to do freelancing and self-employed work.

Although being self-employed is very convenient for the plenty of people, many people cannot do work independently. Because working on own is very difficult things and it is full of surprises. So, chances of failure is very high and just by following trend we cannot risk everything. For example, many start-up are facing serious problems regading either financial or legal. It is extremly difficult for average person to manage both legal and financial issues at a time. Consequently, they can loose their entire property in just one start-up. Therefore, succes is not certain and many people might fail in their journey.

In conclusion, people are attracted to being self-employed and this trend is mainly caused by social media influences. Meanwhile, I believe that being self-employed has several disadvantages such as risk of loosing fortune in a start-up.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both questions: social media is presented as a reason people choose self-employment, while financial and legal difficulties and the possibility of failure are given as disadvantages. Your position is clear in the introduction and conclusion. However, the explanation of the cause is narrow and relies mainly on people seeing success stories online; it would be stronger if you explained other motivations, such as independence or flexible working, or developed the influence of social media in more detail. The disadvantages are relevant, but the example of losing property in a start-up is asserted rather than explained. The response meets the stated length requirement; the nine words copied from the task prompt are excluded from the count.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear overall arrangement: an introduction, one paragraph explaining a cause, one discussing disadvantages, and a conclusion. This makes the main line of argument easy to follow. You also use linking expressions such as “For instance,” “Consequently,” and “In conclusion” to signal examples and outcomes. At times, however, these links feel mechanical or repeat the same relationship, particularly the repeated use of “Consequently.” The sentence beginning “Although being self-employed is very convenient…” is followed by a fragment beginning “Because,” which interrupts the flow. Some references, such as “they” in the start-up example, could be made more precise. Varying transitions and connecting each example more explicitly to its point would improve progression.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “self-employed,” “freelancing,” “financial or legal,” and “start-up,” so the reader can understand the main ideas. There are also attempts at more specific expressions such as “business empire” and “independent.” However, the range is limited and several word-choice, collocation, and spelling errors make the writing less natural: “social media platform” is used where a plural or general form is needed, “significant people” does not mean a large number of people, and “loose” is confused with “lose.” Repeated use of “people,” “business,” and “self-employed” also limits variety. Aim for accurate topic-specific phrases and check spelling and collocations carefully.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a relative clause in “from where people are beings influenced” and a conditional idea in “just by following trend we cannot risk everything.” However, complex structures are often faulty, and errors occur frequently enough to make some sentences difficult to read. For example, “many individuals post their business achievements… from where people are beings influenced” has problems with clause construction and verb form; “many start-up are facing” has a number-agreement error; and “chances of failure is very high” has subject–verb disagreement. The fragment “Because working on own is very difficult things” also needs to be joined to a complete sentence. Practise accurate clauses, agreement, articles, and sentence boundaries before adding complexity.

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