It is very important for you to understand how the words are counted in IELTS.
This tutorial explains how the “Words”, “Numbers” and “Symbols” are counted in IELTS
writing task.
Numbers, dates and time are counted as words in IELTS writing. Examples are
mentioned below.
• 50,000 is counted as one word
• 65 is counted as one word
• 4:30pm is counted as one word
• Six million is counted as two words
Dates written is both words and numbers as counted as below example:
• 15th May – One word and one number
• 12/05/2020 – is counted as one word
Symbols with numbers are counted as one word.
• 10% - one word
• 50 percent – counted as one word and one number; as two words
• Fifty two percent – as three words
Determiners a, an, the are counted as a word. All prepositions in, at, on also counted as
one word.
Determiners a, an, the are counted as a word. All prepositions in, at, on also counted as
one word.
Hyphenated words such as long-term, father-in-law, check-in are counted as one word.
Closed-form compound words (E.g. grandmother, mailbox) are counted as one word.
Compound words which are written as two words are counted as two words. E.g. ice
cream, high school, real estate.
Words and numbers in brackets are counted as separate words.
Contractions (I’m, Don’t) are counted as one word.
Some candidates assume that words such as “the” are counted only once irrespective
to the number of instances that they were used. This is a wrong assumption. E.g. The
dog walked into the garden and fetch the ball…” this is counted as 10 words.
