Every PTE writing task grades a Form trait that depends directly on word count, so writing too short or too long costs marks before a human or the AI marker reads a single sentence for content. This page lists the word limits Pearson publishes for each writing task, in both PTE Academic and PTE Core, and the live counter below lets you paste or type a draft and see where it falls against the limit for the task you pick.
| Task | Exam | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Summarize Written Text | Academic | One sentence, 5-75 words |
| Summarize Written Text | Core | 25-50 words (one or more sentences) |
| Write Essay | Academic | 200-300 words |
| Write Email | Core | Task instruction: 80-120 words. Form full credit band in Score Guide: 50-120 words. |
| Summarize Spoken Text | Academic | 50-70 words |
| Summarize Spoken Text | Core | 20-30 words |
Pearson's score guides give every writing task a Form trait that is judged purely on length and basic presentation, separately from Content, Grammar and Vocabulary. Falling outside the word range for a task lowers or removes your Form marks even when the writing itself is otherwise strong.
In the more serious cases, a response outside the range, in all capitals, or without normal punctuation can bring your Content score to zero as well as your Form score, because the score guides state that for Summarize Written Text, Summarize Spoken Text and Write Email a Content or Form score of zero stops the rest of that response being scored.
In PTE Academic, Summarize Written Text must be written as a single, complete sentence of 5 to 75 words. The Academic Score Guide gives full Form marks only for one sentence inside that range; a response that is not one sentence, or is shorter than 5 or longer than 75 words, scores zero on Form.
PTE Core sets a narrower target: the Core Score Guide gives full Form marks for 25 to 50 words, with reduced credit from 5 to 24 words or 51 to 60 words, and zero Form marks below 5 words or above 60. Pearson's Core test-format page is stricter and says responses under 25 or over 50 words will not be scored, so treat 25 to 50 as the target. Core's response can be one or more sentences, unlike the Academic task.
| Exam | Full Form marks | Partial credit | Zero Form marks |
|---|---|---|---|
| PTE Academic | 5-75 words, one sentence | Not applicable — sentence rule is pass/fail | Not one sentence, or under 5 / over 75 words |
| PTE Core | 25-50 words | 5-24 or 51-60 words | Under 5 or over 60 words |
Write Essay only appears in PTE Academic. The Academic Score Guide gives full Form marks for 200 to 300 words, one Form mark for 120 to 199 or 301 to 380 words, and zero Form marks below 120 or above 380 words, or for an essay written in all capitals, without normal punctuation, or as a bullet list.
Write Essay is scored on seven traits, and an off-topic essay scores zero on all of them, so read the prompt carefully; treat the word range as a floor to clear early while you draft, not a target to check only at the end.
Write Email only appears in PTE Core. Pearson's task instruction on screen tells you to write 80 to 120 words, but the Core Score Guide's Form trait gives full marks across a wider band of 50 to 120 words, with one mark for 30 to 49 or 121 to 140 words, and zero below 30 or above 140 words.
Aim inside the on-screen instruction of 80 to 120 words when you practise, since that is what the task itself tells you and it sits safely inside the Score Guide's full-marks band. Treat the wider 50 to 120 range as the actual scoring floor, not as your practice target.
Pick the task you are practising from the selector above the text box, then type or paste your draft. The counter updates as you type and shows your current word count next to the limit for that task, so you can see immediately whether you are inside the full-marks range.
The counter checks word count only; it does not check whether Summarize Written Text is written as one sentence, whether your grammar or spelling is correct, or how strong your content is. Use it alongside full practice attempts and a task guide, not as your only check before an exam.
