TOEFL® essay: Is it more important to understand ideas and concepts than facts?

[Lingyi214]

I partly agree with the statement that understanding the ideas and concepts is more important than merely knowing the facts. However, I think the best way is to combine them together.

First of all, knowing the ideas and concepts are really important for establishing knowledge. The concepts and ideas are the abstract form of a kind of atmosphere. They use non-concrete words to generalize the qualities of a kind of objects or phenomena. All the theroms in physics serve this purpose. For example, the three fundamental laws of Newton is the concept that will explain all the macrosopic movement of any objects on earth. If we understand this concept fairly well, we can easily apply this knowledge to all the problems fall in the same category. Another example is the concept of velocity. After we clarify the speed of light is much faster than that of the sound, we can explain the phenomenon that even the thunder and the lightening happen at the same time, we see the lightening first. Therefore, knowing the ideas and concepts can help us understand the essence of things or atmospheres in the world.

Secondly, the facts are just the outcome of the concepts or ideas, which is not too hard to learn. The facts are always the collection of one's own experience. We can always see some people with little education but become good technicians or skilled workers. For example, when I was young, there was a very skilled man claiming to be able to fix all kinds of applicances at home. I will bet he hardly know any physical knowledge of electricity, but he know how to fix them because he learned from his own experience. He just demonstrated an old saying: Practice makes perfect. Knowing the fact can just make people become familar and more skilled at something. But since we students are not aiming to know how to utilize or practice, but rather, to know the underlying principles of the atmosphere, we do not need to treat fact as important as ideas or concepts.

Thirdly, though understanding ideas and concepts are more important than just knowing the facts, I do think a good combination of the two would be the best choice. In fact, truly understanding a concept or idea is not an easy job since the limitation of our previous personal experience. It is quite necessary to testify the concept and ideas in the practice and observe the facts. In this way, we can consolidate our understanding of our knowledge. Beside, not all established concepts are right. We should hold a skeptical view towards all of them. Therefore, by testifying them in the practice might correct the former incorrect concept and find out the true one.

In conclusion, although I agree that only learning the facts is not as important as the concept or ideas, I do hold that a good combination of the two will bring a much better result.

TOEFL listening lectures: A lecture from a history class

[Kitosdad]

Let no person tell you it will be easy :-.............To learn to speak English.

It will be a tough uphill climb, and it will test your determination to succeed to its very limits, ..................... however................. you can make it a damned sight easier by;

Learning the rules of Basic Sentence Structure.

ALWAYS refer to yourself as, "I."

Starting each sentence with a capital letter.

Use a capital letter to start the name of every person, proper noun, day of the week & month of the year, country or language.

Ending each sentence with a full stop(.) question mark (?) or exclamation mark(!)

Learning the difference between nouns and proper nouns.

Understanding the need for commas and their correct usage.

Learning about Personal pronouns and Possessive pronouns & Possessive adjectives.

If you can master all of the above, then the rest will fall into place of its own accord.

You only succeed by being determined to do so. Do not falter. We are here to help you.

Kitos.
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Keep it simple ... Keep it interesting.