IELTS Writing; Word Count

Many students ask if each and every single word is counted in the IELTS Writing Test.
The answer is YES. All words are counted. Even small words like 'a/an/the', 'of', 'in', ....

The following sentence is counted as 12 words.
He is an engineer who leaves in the United State of America.

As you can see, it is not really hard to fulfill the IELTS Writing task in terms of word count.