I'd say for Standard if you really want your band 6 and get out of the band 5 range, you gotta not remember your essays and try and study your texts in depth, then produce a really good essay in the exam.
You can have a template but you have to study all your texts in depth.
Re: CSSA Ancient History
If you looked at the independent 2009 paper, you would see that the exact same question is derived from their pompeii and herculaneum. Luckily i looked at it.
Did anyone's school modify the questions to the CSSA paper 2 for standard?
For my school, we are guaranteed that Module A is a radio interview and we were given three potential essay questions for Module C.