GRE® Essay: Students should study in groups.

[Konstantin]

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Question:
Because learning is not a solitary activity but one that requires collaboration among people, students of all ages will benefit academically if they work frequently in groups.

Answer:
In assertion that students should frequently study in groups the speaker fails to acknowledge that the individual learning is a huge component of any education. Nevertheless, I tend to agree with him that learning in groups students are able to improve academic results. At the same time I suggest that such practice could benefit not even their professional skills, but social ones too.

The human being is a social create, we can’t live without other people, because we need in their help, friendship or at least presence. Of course we require solitude to think our problems over, to read or to make some exercises. Nevertheless, working by oneself is a basic component of education, since we have to prepare our assignments, gather information in library and prepare presentations. However, all these things would be useless without assessments of others: parents, professors or peers. Studying in group provides us with such feedback and encourages us to work harder, in order to become the top student in a class. Without the spirit of competition, resides in any group, a student may become lazy; but when he see twenty equal people around him, who also want to receive the best grades, he does his best to be beyond comparison. The advantage of competition has been determined by many firms a long time ago and chiefs of them are often even encouraging it by specific means like an introduction of a pretty woman in a male collective.

Secondly, studying in a group, people share their knowledge; for example, one could propose an idea which will be trivial for him, but fresh for others. One may admit as well that reading is a great substitution of such live interchange of thoughts. And I agree with him that reading in loneliness is necessary to gather new information and to become familiar with the works of the greatest scientists. On the other hand, even if a student read a lot of books, he would be unable to generate fresh ideas swiftly without an appropriate practice in a group.

Studying with others, we have been developing not merely some specific skills. Simultaneously, we improve our social attainments and, probably, they are more valuable for the future success of a student. He has been learning how to assert his point of view with the proper arguments, how to make presentations and speak publicly, how to make friends and so on. Often, I faced with the opinion that classmates, distracting one another, are unable to perceive the material effectively. In my opinion, it’s a fault of a teacher who is unable to maintain a necessary order in a classroom.

I read some articles about the higher education in the US and I think that their approach is more felicitous than in our universities. American students have a lot of seminars, where they freely express their ideas; on the other hand students in our country have a few of them. Russian educational system emphasizes a self-studying and, as the result, many students here are unable to coherently express their thoughts in front of an audience that is a considerable disadvantage.

In sum, whether self-education or education in a group is more effective depends on a person’s character. But studying in a group should be a necessary part of every student’s curriculum, since it provides him with an absolutely invaluable experience.