With some hesitation, I retyped Orwell's essay and submitted it as my own. George Orwell got a B- at Harvard, which convinced me that the English department was too difficult for me. It is common to mark up a few pages of the paper and leave the rest. The system works poorly. Providing fair assessment of and adequate feedback on writing requires time and skill.
Large classes tend to be worst.
An alternative Journal submissions, proposals, and documents related to hiring, firing, and promotions are often assessed by multiple assessors using an anonymous peer review system. In theory, this provides both careful scrutiny of texts and safeguards against arbitrary judgements. This paper reports on a first attempt. There was talk of scrapping the essay altogether. Anonymous peer review was adopted as an alternative.