- Very short words always count as one Word For example, ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘at’ all count as one word each.
- Small words such as “a” or “an” are counted as one word. All prepositions, such as “in” or “at” are also counted. All words are counted.
- Hyphenated words, such as ‘two-thirds’, ‘ex-president’, and ‘fifty-five’ all count as one word each. *numbers between 21-99 (except 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90) are always hyphenated when written. For example, 21=twenty-one, 55= fifty-five, and 72 = seventy-two. Therefore, these numbers count as one word each in IELTS writing, reading, and listening. *Hyphenated words like “up-to-date” are counted as one word.
- Words like ‘sailboat’ are called compound nouns because they combine two words (sailtboat). Compound nouns count as one word each.
- Compound nouns which are written as one word are also counted as one word. For example, blackboard = one word.
- Numbers, dates, and time are counted as words . For example, ‘5,000’ = one word, 10-06-2019 = one word, and 12:00pm = one word.
- Words with a symbol will only count as one word each. For example, 25% = one word.
- Symbols with numbers are not counted. For example, 55% = one number (the symbol “%” is not counted as a word). However, if you write “55 percent” it is counted as one word and one number.
- Example: NOT MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
- For example 30,000 = one word
- 55 = one word
- 9.30am = one word
- 12.06.2016 = one word.
- In listening, 30,000 is counted as one number and 9.30AM is also counted as one number.
- Dates written as both words and numbers are counted in this way: 12th July = one number and one word.
- All words are counted, including words in brackets. For example in IELTS writing, “The majority of energy was generated by electricity (55%).”. This sentence is counted as 9 words. The number in brackets is counted.
