If you read the marking criteria for any English essay it always just says sound understanding, extensive understanding, etc you get the point
You literally never know what it takes to get a certain mark, I have a theory that not only the students don't know but the teachers and NESA also have no f..... clue how to mark English. There have been times where multiple teachers for other subjects told me that it's obvious that I do really well in English because of my writing and then blah blah need to improve XYZ, this was when I got a 50% and a 60% for my English tests. I've also had times where my class teacher said my work is good and then another teacher was marking the assessment and I barely passed again. You never know with English. At another occasion I did what I normally do and got a 95% and came 1st, idk how any of that makes sense so I'm just gonna try to do well in my other subjects and let English sort itself out.