Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-29

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)

Nowadays, people prefer buisness than a job because do work for an organization or company is tough because many workers can manage their study, part time work and many more. They become tired and bored due to 9 to 5 job. So they prefer self employed. Self employed become a tough but it takes time, hardworking and patience to stand the buisness. First we talk about advantages, People that run their own buisness start from low investment and then slowly they build an empire.The can work according to their own will. They do not have fix time to work. They can work when they want. The second thing is that they can start from small, For example, they can start online at a small setup and then go to higher scale. They create insta page and then take orders if they start a clothing brand. Once their audience become big they hier manager and build an empire.

However, it also have many disadvantages. If a fresher start a buisness he may face a loss or many things because he has not an experience. Secondely, he have to manage all things he may become frustrated. For example, if a student start her buisness he has to manage studies, exams, assignments, tests, family and many more. The most disadvantage is that Earnings may change from month to month. There is no gurranted monthly income.Buisness loss can may affect personal savings.The stress level become increased.

In conclusion,A person must start hus buisness if have a risk because risk is better tham regret. It may take time but a very good decision for future and career.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both questions: you suggest that people value flexible working hours and the chance to grow a small venture, and you identify inexperience, workload, unstable earnings and stress as disadvantages. These are relevant points, and the clothing-brand example helps illustrate how a business might expand. However, the reasons people choose self-employment are not always clearly distinguished from its advantages, and the opening claim about managing study and part-time work is difficult to follow. Several disadvantages are listed but not explained in depth, while the conclusion gives advice about taking risks rather than clearly summarising your answer. Develop fewer points with clearer explanations and examples to make the response more complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure, moving from reasons and benefits to disadvantages and a conclusion. Paragraphing helps the reader see these broad sections, and signposts such as “However” and “For example” show some awareness of how to connect ideas. However, the progression within paragraphs is sometimes unclear: the opening moves quickly from company work to study, then to self-employment, without explaining the links. “First we talk about advantages” also shifts into an informal, essay-planning voice, and the sequence of points can feel list-like. Improve cohesion by grouping related ideas, using clear topic sentences, and making references such as “they” unambiguous.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “self-employed,” “investment,” “audience,” “personal savings,” and “monthly income.” There are also attempts at more specific language, such as describing a business growing from a small setup to a larger scale. However, the range is limited and several spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable, including “buisness,” “gurranted,” “hier,” and “fix time.” Some phrases are unnatural or imprecise, such as “build an empire,” “the most disadvantage,” and “risk is better than regret.” Aim for accurate spelling and more natural collocations, and use a wider range of precise terms for income, workload and business growth.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple sentences and longer structures, including conditional examples such as “If a fresher start a buisness he may face a loss.” This shows an effort to explain causes and consequences. However, the range remains limited, and errors occur frequently in verb forms, agreement, articles and sentence construction. For example, “people prefer buisness than a job because do work” lacks a clear grammatical structure; “it also have” should use an agreeing verb, and “he have to manage” has the same agreement problem. Punctuation and capitalisation are also inconsistent, particularly around sentence boundaries. Practise building accurate subject–verb–object sentences first, then add subordinate clauses and check agreement and punctuation.

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