Heh, part of the strategy I used when I took the SAT was slightly darkening my "two-bit" words with my pencil and making sure to fill the exact amount of space provided-minus-one line. I had read (don't have the citation at hand) that length of essay tracks score pretty well. And, to clinch it, I wanted their (very brief) attention to be drawn to good words, used correctly.

Result: 12.

(Though, I think the main thing was just committing to writing a tight, formulaic essay. I outscored some friends who I thought were better writers than I was, because they were trying to write a good essay rather than a good SAT essay.)