Where a main examination includes drafting, it tends to be the paper candidates prepare least deliberately, on the assumption that it can be handled by general legal knowledge. It cannot, because drafting is convention-heavy and the conventions are not obvious from reading substantive law.
The reassuring part is that the errors are consistent and therefore fixable.
Writing an essay in the shape of a pleading
The most frequent failure. The candidate knows the law, and produces something that explains it.
A pleading does not explain the law. It sets out facts and the relief claimed, in the structure the format requires. Legal argument has its place, and that place is narrower than candidates assume.
If your draft reads like an answer to a question, it is not yet a draft.
Omitting the formal parts
Cause title, parties, jurisdiction clause, verification, prayer. These are not decorative and their absence is straightforwardly markable.
Candidates who have read many judgments but never seen a filed set of papers routinely miss them, because judgments do not display them. If you have access to a set of real pleadings, read them for structure rather than content. An internship where you handle actual filings is the fastest way to absorb this, and the internships listings carry chamber positions where drafting is part of the day-to-day work.
Vague prayers
The prayer is the operative part, and a vague one undermines everything preceding it.
State precisely what is sought, against whom, and in what terms. "Such other relief as the court deems fit" is a residual clause, not a substitute for specifying the relief you actually want.
Facts in the wrong order
Pleadings are usually chronological, in numbered paragraphs, one material fact or closely related set per paragraph.
Thematic organisation feels natural to someone used to writing essays and reads as disorganised in a pleading. Numbered chronological paragraphs also make the document referable, which is part of why the convention exists.
Pleading evidence rather than facts
A recurring confusion. Pleadings state material facts; evidence proves them later.
Loading a plaint with what a witness will say or what a document contains is a category error, and it makes the draft longer and weaker at once.
Inconsistent internal references
Where a draft refers to an earlier paragraph or an annexure, the reference must be correct. Under examination pressure, candidates renumber paragraphs and leave stale cross-references behind.
A single pass at the end checking only references catches this in a minute.
How to practise efficiently
Work from formats rather than from memory. Get a small set of standard drafts, understand what each part is doing and why, then reproduce them from a fact pattern without looking.
The goal is not memorising a template. It is internalising why the parts are ordered as they are, so that an unfamiliar variation does not defeat you.
Reading well-drafted documents is the fastest input. Platforms like Legal Drive exist to produce standard legal documents, and reading finished drafts closely is a useful way to see conventional structure in a complete form.
One habit worth building
Before submitting any draft in practice, read it once asking a single question: could a stranger, given only this document, understand what happened and what is being asked for?
If not, the problem is usually structure rather than law.