Word count: why 150 and 250 matter

The minimums are not a guideline. Going under them costs marks directly, and it is one of the few penalties in IELTS Writing that is close to mechanical.

The limits

What happens if you go under

An under-length response is penalised under Task Achievement or Task Response — the criterion about whether you did the job. The reasoning is straightforward: below the minimum you almost certainly have not developed the ideas enough to meet the higher descriptors, whatever the quality of the individual sentences.

This matters because it caps one of the four criteria regardless of how good the rest is. A 240-word Task 2 essay with excellent grammar still loses marks on a quarter of its score.

Does writing more help?

Not on its own. There is no upper limit, but there is no reward for length either, and three real risks:

• More words, more errors. Grammatical Accuracy considers how often errors appear. Padding adds errors without adding ideas.
• Repetition. Restating a point in different words is visible, and counts against Coherence.
• Time. An over-long Task 1 is stolen from Task 2, which is worth double.

A well-developed Task 2 usually lands around 270–320 words. If you are regularly writing 400, the question worth asking is whether the extra hundred words contain a new idea.

Counting words in the exam

Computer-delivered IELTS shows a word counter. On paper there is none, so you need a rough sense of your own handwriting: count the words in a few typical lines, then count lines. Practise that once and you will never need to count during the exam.