How I actually read an essay

Before I read a single sentence for content, I check four structural things, because they predict the mark more reliably than any individual clever line.

Does the thesis answer the actual prompt, or a nearby one? Does every topic sentence argue rather than describe? Is the evidence doing analytical work, or sitting there as decoration? Does the conclusion go somewhere new?

Almost every essay that jumps from a 7 to a 9 between drafts fixed one of those four things, not the vocabulary.