There are marks available in my exam for the fluency of writing style and argument. How can I improve the style of my writing?

This might seem like something that you either have or don’t have. That really isn’t the case at all! There are a few things that you can do to make your writing more fluent and professional. Try getting into the habit of reading everything you write aloud. Big improvements to sentences will present themselves; you’ll notice awkward wordings that weren’t obvious when you were writing them down, and your brain will naturally gravitate towards constructions that are easier for the reader to understand. Once you’ve done this a few times, you’ll probably find you write better sentences the first time round too! Something also I find really helpful is simply to try to read as much as possible. This can be anything really, as long as you admire the way the material is written; it’s a good idea to read a broadsheet newspaper every day, in particular the analysis and commentary sections. Or, if you want to really up your essay-writing game, try looking through the work of famous critics like T S Eliot, Christopher Ricks and Terry Eagleton (Google Books is great for this). You’ll find yourself picking up lots of new turns of phrase, and with lots of more interesting ways of constructing sentences will suddenly be at your fingertips. Finally, remember that practice makes perfect! It’s much better to do lots of practice questions (even if they’re not your best work) than to do only one and agonise over it until you think it’s perfect. This is because you’ll learn from your mistakes each time, so each time you’ll improve – and you’ll also get better at doing things right first time, which you need to do in an exam situation.