Two candidates can know the same law equally well and still receive noticeably different marks on the same mains paper, and the gap is very often structure, not knowledge. This is a hard thing to accept when you have spent months building genuine command of a subject, but a mains examiner reading dozens of answer sheets on the same question is not primarily testing whether you know the provision, they are testing whether you can present what you know in a way that is fast to read, easy to follow, and clearly organised around the actual question asked.
Answer the question that was actually asked
This sounds obvious and is routinely ignored under exam pressure. A question asking you to discuss the scope of an exception is not the same question as one asking you to discuss the provision generally, and an answer that writes everything you know about the broader topic, hoping the specific point gets covered somewhere inside it, reads as unfocused even when it is technically accurate. Before writing, take fifteen seconds to identify exactly what is being asked, not the general area it belongs to, and build your answer around that specific ask.
A visible structure is worth more than most aspirants believe
An answer with a brief introduction stating the legal position, a clearly organised body working through the relevant provisions or principles in a logical order, and a short conclusion that directly resolves what the question asked, is easier for an examiner to award full marks to than the same content delivered as one dense, unbroken paragraph, even when both answers contain identical legal substance. Structure is not decoration. It is what lets an examiner, moving quickly through a large stack of papers, actually locate and credit what you know.
Cite provisions precisely, or do not cite them at all
A wrong section number attached to a correct legal principle looks worse on paper than the principle stated correctly without a citation. If you are confident of the exact provision, cite it. If you are not certain, state the principle clearly and skip the specific number rather than guessing and risking an error that undermines an otherwise strong answer. This is a genuinely difficult discipline to hold under time pressure, when the instinct is to sound more authoritative by attaching a number to everything, but examiners notice a wrong citation far more than they notice the absence of one.
Manage length deliberately, not by running out of time
A common, avoidable mistake is spending disproportionate time on the first two or three questions because they happen to be strong subjects, and then rushing the remaining questions in far less time than they deserve. Before the paper starts, or in the first minute after seeing it, make a rough allocation of time per question based on marks, and hold yourself to it. A well-structured, appropriately concise answer to every question outperforms a brilliant answer to three questions and a rushed, thin answer to the rest.