kashoku

im trying to do caltech ea
but i got stuck on the first supp. questions.
they asked for
What are three adjectives your friends would use to describe you? (Please limit your response to 350 characters or less)
Please list three books, along with their authors, that have been particularly meaningful to you. You need not confine yourself to math or science-related texts. (Please limit your response to 600 characters or less)

are they looking for just three words or do we need to elaborate on them? same for books, is any explaination required?
which is the main essay that i should focus on?
some essays indicate word limit of 1500, which really scares me. are they looking for essays around 1500 words? there are about two of them.
i will really appreciate it if some one can tell me which essays are the most important and the ones that i should elaborate on. or are they really looking for like 5000 word applications?

lordofnarf

Short answers have been discussed here. As for everything else, just write how much you feel is necessary to answer the question.