Have you ever been in a writing group? If so, our experiences have differed.

It isn't all fiction. Depending on the group, it may not be fiction at all. Part of the point of doing them is to hone your skill and your craft (which are related, but not exactly the same). When you're doing research and reporting, or working for a magazine, you'll often need to quickly absorb information, translate it into language appropriate for the audience, and crank it out with short deadlines.

Now, I didn't personally do any journalism at all, but I did do some research and reporting as a side gig. Ideally, you take notes and have references and all, but the core of what you do is hoovering information and regurgitating it, much like when doing a book report, or an essay for a class. There's some of that, that you get better at with practice, where the results are going to improve over time, but the core ability to think on the go, start typing to crank out the basics and then refine, that's something you have to have a baseline with.

The intro they had reads like someone that has the knack for it. They're making a coherent statement that informs the reader of what they can expect, while conveying the limitations of the project itself. Someone that can do that, can type out 8 pages and it be a solid first draft. Might not be something that merits a top score, but it's definitely going to be worth a passing grade, imo. And, as I said, the bare minimum of passing. If the rest is junk, that's all they get.

I'm not even that good at it. But that didn't stop me from essentially cranking my papers out in high school and college like you did. Just suck up the reading, then churn it out. Never got below an average grade, and usually got respectable scores. Wouldn't pass muster in a post-graduate setting, or professional one, but it'll do for everything up to that level.