TOEFL® essay: People can learn more from watching television than reading books?

[Dengqinbo]

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? People can learn more from watching television than reading books. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.(07.02.03)

I post my essay here, and I need your suggestion on it, telling me which part is wordy or irrelevant to the topic. This paper seems a little bit long so if you can make it shorter within around 450 words, I would be grateful for your help.

When speaking of television, we often come out with such an image in our mind: an angry mother chiding her kid
spending too much time on TV programs instead of reading books. Truly, our parents always think of television is
something that makes children addicted and thereby goes far from learning. However, when I recall my own experience
of growth, I cannot find any blame of myself on TV. Quite the contrary, I consider television has better
educational influence than books do for the following reasons.

To start with, television has as much as coverage of knowledge as books. Television nowadays has been divided into
specific sub channels. We have sport channel which exclusively focuses on physical activities and reports sport
events; we can keep tracks of the latest news around the world on 24-hour news channel. We can freely fix on a
certain television which meets our appetite most. Days are gone when television shows were simply designed to amuse
the public, today's programs are more into the scientific areas that satisfy people's curiosity. Programs for
kids have added more introductions of life skills to the naive ones; discovery channel bring us to explore the
unknown world. Also, you can enjoy the lectures on live which discuss humanities like archeology, art and alike. As
with books, these programs have successfully imparted knowledge of all kinds to audience. Moreover, since
television has wider coverage of influenced population, it definitely educates more groups of people than books do.

In addition, television can render audience a 3D teaching environment: audios, images and words. This combination of
multi-mediums cannot be achieved by books. When I started to learn English, I bought a bunch of books in which
introduces the pronunciation method and other relevant skills. A few months later, I was pretty upset because I could
not get improved my English if only depending on these books. Then, I switched to watch a TV grogram Let's Talk In
English. Very soon, I surprisingly found that I can read all the 26 letters in accurate tones. Besides, my listening
skill was skyrocketing. Getting involved into the established English environment in the grogram, I was inspired to
speak aloud with people on TV, following their flow of speech, acting as one of them in short conversations.
Eventually, I was able to catch up with them easily and to understand their chatting contents to eighty percent.
So, the marriage of sounds and words of television can give the educational effects that books can not.

Finally, instead of indulging children into leisure, television actually creates more opportunities and interests of
learning to children. Reading sometimes is boring especially when forced to read a book of literature you dislike
for a long time. The exquisite cover and light fragrance of printing words cannot exhilarate you at all, only to
make you sleepy. At this moment, you hear on television a man is talking about the author you are looking at. He is
so expressive to exhibit the writer's whole life and his works. During 30 minutes of the program, you have not
only dropped dizzy situation, but also have been kindled to continue the book at your hand. Obviously, when
watching television, children switch the passive receiving-knowledge pattern into the positive imbibing- knowledge
pattern, which enable them to learn more.

All in all, television can not only serve as a substitute of traditional books, but more importantly, it is an
efficient teaching medium better than books. No doubt, people can learn more from watching televisions than reading
books.