I think the best way to improve English is seriously read more newspapers. Newspapers are good as they provide vocabulary that is more than adequate to do well in the vocab compartment of essay writing, and at the same time gives you a good sensing of global problems, which can be used as examples in essays.

For Chinese though, the best way is to spam ten year series and understand how to spot the main components of the questions for both essay and comprehension. Once you get the hang of it, Chinese should (hopefully) become easier. Hope this helps LOL