Help with A Level English lit essays

Hello, this is me being a bit unreasonable but if you have any advice please respond .
There is a girl in my English Lit class that consistently gets ONE mark more than me in essays, we have improved recently and she now gets 25/25 and I get 24/25. (I think my teachers’ marking is inaccurate but that’s a different story). If I was an English teacher I would be wary of giving out full marks because that suggests an essay is perfect - I have read a few of her essays and they are not groundbreaking. I accept that they are better than mine (and I’m not salty by the way, just frustrated that I don’t feel like I’m improving). Of course my English teachers are professionals and they have been teaching for a long time, but her phrasing is sometimes quite sloppy, and she includes a lot of alternative interpretations (‘Alternatively’ when it is not an alternative interpretation, it just adds on to the previous point) and stuff when its really not necessary. Her essays are also quite formulaic when I thought that was something you were supposed to avoid at A Level. They are just not something that I would expect to be full marks. Anyways - all this to ask how to climb up the last few rungs of the ladder. In the 23s/24s/25s the jump from each mark feels massive and if possible I would like to know what changed with your essays when you started to get higher. Is it the way you structured them/the argument/depth of analysis??? Thanks (also I’m sorry if I sound like a horrible person, I’ve just ALWAYS got 1 mark lower than her and its starting to annoy me, and I struggle to learn from reading her essays).

You don’t sound horrible at all this is a very normal, A very specific kind of academic frustration. At the very top band, the jump usually isn’t about having better ideas but about how confidently and efficiently you control them: sharper topic sentences that clearly answer the question, analysis that zooms in on why a word/technique matters rather than what it does, and a sense that every sentence earns its place no hedging, no “also and alternatively” unless it genuinely reframes the argument). Full-mark essays often feel slightly boring because they’re disciplined: precise terminology, sustained line of argument, and judicious evaluation rather than lots of interpretations. One practical thing that often pushes a 24 to a 25 is signposting your judgement more explicitly This ultimately present Most compellingly so the examiner never has to infer your insight. You are improving it just gets invisible at this level and the fact you’re annoyed usually means you’re right on the brink of that last rung.

awww thanks for giving me hope