Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-20

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 recent time, self-employment is more popular than working for a company or organization. In my poin of view, this might be the case because the young generation have strong desire of being independant and flaxible. ,One clear benefit of this is that it can create job and inrease the practical skills of a person. However , this approach can also have several drawbacks.

The young people nowdays are desire to have more indepandence and flexiblity. They are more independant in the field they are working by themself. Self employment can help a person to increase their creativity and they help them to be confidant onntheir skill . It slso help a person's creative thinking, problem solving skill. An self employed person can create joob for himself and the people around them. It will improve the living standerd not only the person but also the people from the society. For example, when an yound adult start their self depended work they encourage more people to be self employeed.

On the other hand ,when people are self-employed they can have a negative impact of financial and lifestyle challenges. As we know that the self employed person have flaxibiluty in their time , it can create challenges in the lifestyle. The financial challenge are all depend on themself so the risk is to high. For example, In a self dependent business owner enjoy the revenue alone as well as if the business have any challlenges the owner have to face it alone.

In summary we can say that the self employed jobs are flaxible and ower can have the full independance on their work. It can also create some financial and lifestyle challenges for the person. A person should take the risk very carefully.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses both questions: it suggests that independence and flexibility attract people to self-employment, and identifies financial and lifestyle challenges as disadvantages. The position is clear in the opening and conclusion, and relevant examples are attempted, such as a business owner creating work for others and bearing business risks alone. However, some points are asserted rather than explained. For instance, the link between flexible working time and lifestyle challenges is not made clear, and the example about encouraging others to become self-employed does not show how this benefit works in practice. Develop each main reason with a clearer explanation and a specific, relevant example so the ideas are more fully supported.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay has a recognisable overall structure: an introduction, a paragraph on reasons, a paragraph on disadvantages, and a conclusion. The contrast marker “On the other hand” helps signal the shift to drawbacks, while “For example” introduces supporting details. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes unclear: the first body paragraph moves from independence to skills, job creation, and social living standards without showing the links between these points. Some connections are also mechanical or confusing, such as “As we know that” and “as well as if.” Use clearer topic sentences and organise each paragraph around one main idea, then explain and illustrate it. More precise referencing would also help readers follow who “they” and “them” refer to.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The response uses relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “self-employment,” “financial challenges,” “problem solving,” and “revenue.” It also attempts to express a range of ideas about independence, skills, and risk. However, spelling errors and inaccurate word forms are noticeable throughout, including “independant,” “flaxibility,” “confidant,” and “self employeed.” Some phrases are also unnatural or imprecise, such as “strong desire of being” and “negative impact of financial and lifestyle challenges.” These issues sometimes make the reader pause to interpret the intended meaning. Check spelling carefully and learn common collocations as complete phrases, such as “a desire for independence” and “face financial risks.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

There are attempts at both simple and more complex sentences, including the conditional structure “when people are self-employed” and the contrast introduced by “However.” The main ideas are generally understandable, but grammatical errors occur in sentence construction, agreement, articles, and punctuation. For example, “the young generation have” has a subject–verb agreement problem, while “An self employed person” uses an incorrect article and “the self employed person have” has agreement and article errors. The sentence beginning “As we know that” is also awkwardly constructed, and punctuation spacing is inconsistent. Practise accurate sentence patterns and check each sentence for a clear subject and verb, correct agreement, and appropriate articles before adding more complex clauses.

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