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When I doing my IELTS test, I found

Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer

and in a blank

Time at current address：_______

I filled in fortnight, because I think only one word or number should be filled in. But the answer is 2 weeks, and actually there is 2 weeks in the dialog. Did I misunderstand it?

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  • Two weeks is definitely a word and a number. That's what "and/or" means: a word or a number or a word AND a number. But I think this question may be off-topic, since it's about why a particular IELTS question is scored the way it is.
    – stangdon
    Commented Mar 30, 2017 at 2:02

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Maybe it requested "a number and/or one word".

It sounds like maybe you thought that the answer is one word which is also a number. But the test is asking for a number and/or a word -- this means either a number, a word, or a number and a word. So, writing a number and a word is acceptable.

Your answer of "fortnight" is also correct, because a fortnight is two weeks, but you also could have written "two weeks".

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  • Is using just "fortnight" like this correct? As an American English speaker, I don't use "fortnight" often, but I would never use month or week in this way. Always "time at current address: one week", never "time at current address: week". I would expect fortnight to be used in the same way.
    – Deolater
    Commented Mar 30, 2017 at 15:04
  • In American English we don't usually use "fortnight". You're right that you normally wouldn't just say "fortnight". You'd say "a fortnight", or maybe "one fortnight".
    – Epanoui
    Commented Mar 30, 2017 at 15:16

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