Jump through all hoops, however meaningless and soul-killing. This will result in good grades. (I wouldn't actually recommend this, but it's the answer to your

Jump through all hoops, however meaningless and soul-killing. This will result in good grades. (I wouldn't actually recommend this, but it's the answer to your question. And, as far as I can tell, it's the only answer to your question -- the system does not care about students more than about a standard deviation above the mean.)