Originally Posted by Demonstrative

My experience could obliquely shed some light.

I scored 41 in essay back in 2014 (So not impressive, I know). I attempted tge topic "Great nations win without fighting."

I wrote hardly 15 pages. Since I had not practiced writing at all, I too suffered from that "perfect-word-syndrome". So for the first three pages, I tried to come up with flowery expression and avoided banalities. While I was still left with quite a lot of content, it dawned upon me that only ten minutes were left. In a rush, I quickly jotted down my outline (that I had written with pencil on the answer sheet). Then I quickly wrote down conclusion which was technically wrong. The paucity of time made me feel nervy and I introduced new ideas in the conclusion and the not so apposite quote by Imam Shafi. My conclusiom stretched from 1-2 pages (IMAGINE!). In my essay, I had also marked my mistakes with pencil, thinking that I would correct them later. I never found time to erasw those pencil marks, let alone their correction.

Not to forget, my essay was also devoid of any thesis statement.

I made a slight mistake in the quotation of Dwiht D. Eisenhower that I wrote on the first page. I also made a mistake in quoting Kahlil Gibran (something I realized only after I was out). Add to it that irrelevant quote of Imam Shami (it did not fit the context) and the absence of a thesis statement coupled with a technically wrong conclusion and the mistakes that I had made manifest myself. I was not expecting to get through, yet I did.

Whether I sailed through out of sheer luck or whether it was my content that earned me 41 marks is something only the examiner can tell; I am inclined to believe that it was the former case though.