> Turns out the instructions said the essay would be scored on verbal efficiency; getting the point across clearly with the fewest words. I started playing around and realized that the more words I added, the higher the score, whether they were relevant or grammatical or not.

Frankly, this does not change anything from my experience in school decades ago. The teachers always said that the length does not matter and we should not pad the papers. However students who wrote more pages got better scores every single time.