SAT crap

[shmibs]

ok, i just got my sat scores in the mail today (they were hosted on a site a month ago, but i lost my password and they wouldnt tell it to me even when i gave my birthday, social security number, and exact registration number from the test but anyways...) and was somewhat meh'd by the results
math and reading were fine(740's) but they gave me a 640 in writing because "my essay was too brief"
the topic on the test was "is human companionship necessary for a happy life" or something along those lines, and my answer was basically "it is in the majority of cases as humans are a social animal, grouping together allows specialization, and for the most part people tend to develop psychological issues and such when separated from others etc. but that in a few cases there are people who experience the opposite effect(hermits and such) or who have some belief that they feel is more important than companionship and which in the end brings a net increase in hapiness(monks and such)
after that i had one page worth and really couldnt think of anything else to say...

so question to all you peoples: are essay topics usually better than this and is it worth retaking the damn thing just so some stupes will be impressed because i wrote a lot and used lots of big words?

[jsj795]

Do you know what your essay score was specifically? (from scale of 0~12)
General tip tho: they like the essay when you can back it off with a classical book or two
And in my point of view, the essay topic will be somewhere around there, just an average topic, not too hard, not too easy

[apcalc]

I have not take the SATs yet (next year), but I remember reading somewhere that the longer an essay is, the higher the score, even if the shorter one is better.  (This is not an official rule - it just happens).  Do you need a higher score for your college?  If so, you can take the SAT again and use score choice and only focus on the writing part.

[jsj795]

but remember that some schools (mostly prestigious schools like MIT, Yale, Harvard) don't take the Score Choice; rather, they look at all the scores.
And for longer essays, it is possible but if it is out of topic and irrelevant, then the length will have negative effect on the score too.