not a lot, but it's hell if you have no opinion on the topic (a Venezuelan racer).

I think I ended up getting a A- for it

Back to word counts though. They annoy me, because sometimes they're too little. I'm the opposite end of the scale. I wrote an essay for Biology (ironically about Stem Cells) and it was 50-odd words over the limit. Trouble was, I had already been shortening it down. And couldn't really lower it anymore, all of the information was relevant. And, if you're too many words over the word-count, you lose a mark. Which is a big deal when its out of 25... Same for Chemistry, I wrote too many and the Teacher told us that, if it was over the limit (and the examiners will count every word because they are paid to do it) then they just cross out the excess words and won't read it. So, you would lose a mark or two for being over the limit and maybe more if there was something important in what they crossed out....
All stupid if you ask me.... They have no problem with you writing too little, you've just ballsed it up for yourself and won't even gain the marks. But dropping marks even when you've tried? That's ridiculous....

There are many, many teaching methods that I have disagreed with over the years, but yes unfortunately there's not much we can do about it.

In the community college I went to as a freshman, there was this one professor that had a no make-up policy if you were absent, no matter what you were absent for. He said "I don't want to hear your reason, even if you have a good reason; it's your own problem that you're not here." So we had this one kid come in for testing once and he had a freaking FEVER. He sat in a corner in the back and tried to avoid everyone but it was difficult because it was a crowded and closed-in classroom, and he kept sneezing and stuff and distracting everyone around him because they kept nervously shuffling in fear of catching anything. I'm sorry, but that's really ridiculous.

That's the kinda guy we from New York would call "a tremendous prick".

Seriously, what if someone shoots you in the leg and you're in the hospital. You just end up failing? What an idiot. >_>

In the community college I went to as a freshman, there was this one professor that had a no make-up policy if you were absent, no matter what you were absent for. He said "I don't want to hear your reason, even if you have a good reason; it's your own problem that you're not here." So we had this one kid come in for testing once and he had a freaking FEVER. He sat in a corner in the back and tried to avoid everyone but it was difficult because it was a crowded and closed-in classroom, and he kept sneezing and stuff and distracting everyone around him because they kept nervously shuffling in fear of catching anything. I'm sorry, but that's really ridiculous.

There are many faults with the education system. In this case, quantity vs quality. 

This is certainly the case when it comes to a minimum word limit for essays and such, but consider the case I presented a little earlier: on the other hand, having a maximum word limit is actually a good measure to implement because it encourages writers to be more concise.

Often, my essays are either too short, in which case I have to add useless information or make it "wordy-er", or too long, and I have to omit important information.[/sub]