This for sure. Evaluators have A LOT of leeway (probably too much, tbh) and they talk to the people involved with you. Had a girl in my class go in with pretty good academic scores - enough to show she was working hard, at least - did well in her sims, but absolutely freeze and bomb her first eval. She was talking to someone to resign before her second, but ended up deciding not to because the person she actually needed to talk to was on the top floor. Went into her second eval and they gave her a 100 to give her a fighting chance on the third and she ended up passing. Low in the class, but passing.
Did she actually earn that 100? Probably not, even she admits that, but that's how it goes sometimes if the evaluators think you have a shot.
Hell, I had an evaluator not mark me down for clearing a guy off to 4000 when there was one of those asshole planes way out of our airspace at 3000 because I called back immediately and amended it to 3000. By the book that should have been an A1.