A simple tip to improve your score in essays (which helped me out a lot)

[KenW]

So, last year I did JSL, and I consistently got 90% for all of my essays, and I got 27/30 and 38/40 for the last 2 essays in my exam.
I used a simple trick to improve my score was to consistently score full marks for the "grammar" section of the rubric (or whatever it's called, I haven't looked at one since last year).
Basically, to maximize my score for the grammar section, I would use this sneaky technique which I called "sniping". To snipe, all I did was to remember 15-20 different grammar patterns, and also revise constantly on how to use them correctly. Then, for my essays, I would "snipe" different grammar patterns by strategically choosing which grammar patterns I used at certain places. I would snipe 10 different patterns and usually I would be fine.

Just to demonstrate what I mean, I want to show an example of 2 different essays. (Let different letters represent different grammar patterns.)
Essay 1: ~~~~~X. ~~~~~~~~X. ~~~~~~~Y. ~~~~~~~X. ~~~~~~Y. ~~~~~~X. ~~~~~~~~X. ~~~~~~~X. ~~~~~~Y.~~~~~~Y.
Essay 2: ~~~~~X. ~~~~~~~~Y. ~~~~~~~Z. ~~~~~~~A. ~~~~~~X. ~~~~~~Z. ~~~~~~~~B. ~~~~~~~C. ~~~~~~W. ~~~~~D.
Comparing these 2 essays, Essay 1 would probably score a very low score in terms of grammar patterns, and lacks complexity and is very repetitive and thus would not please the examiners. Essay 2 uses various grammar patterns, and still repeats some grammar patterns but has a lot of diversity, so it would do very well. Just considering the grammar patterns of an essay, writing with grammar patterns in Essay 2 would do much better compared to Essay 1.
Sniping isn't very difficult either if you know a lot of grammar patterns. To fix up essay 1, you could look at the grammar patterns. e.g.) In the 4th grammar pattern (the 3rd X), you could try to see whether you could substitute it with something else without changing the meaning. If you could switch it out for a Z or an A while keeping the meaning relatively the same, that's already an improvement to the essay.
One thing to watch out with sniping is to not try to snipe in a way which is unnatural or makes your argument confusing or changes the meaning too much. Also, you don't need to snipe at every opportunity and include every grammar pattern you know. Sniping more than 3 times in a sentence can be dodgy, as it would make the sentence too long, and it is alright to repeat the same pattern more than once.