GRE®®® issue essay:"Students should memorize facts only after they have studi

[Atlas]

"Students should memorize facts only after they have studied the ideas, trends, and concepts that help explain those facts. Students who have learned only facts have learned very little."

As the statement claims, students get little by learning only fact without understanding the meanings. However, the significance of memorizing is not supposed to be neglected. As a whole, memorization and comprehension may be compared to a bird’s two wings, both of which are indispensible.

To make our discussion more efficient, I would like to divide all the knowledge obtained by human-beings into two kinds. The first may be defined as those acquired by means of direct observation, induction or sanctified by usage. The examples may be listed like historical events, economic phenomena and biological taxonomy. The second, unlike the first, involves knowledge from deductive inference and logical reasoning, such as most of academic theories and otherwise.

The first kind of knowledge, which can be taken as the elite of human experiences, is condensed from what we human-beings have accumulated for thousands of years. Understanding those knowledge points bit by bit, for those except the experts in related fields, is both unnecessary and impossible, just like that we do not need to know why burning firewood emits heat while making fire to keep warm. As a whole, memorizing some certain facts can help prevent us from being entangled with needlessly time-consuming confusion and disputes. For instance, as to students specialized in physics, further principles such as the interaction between charges and the variation rule of electric fields should be grasped, but it is quite sufficient for a student majoring in literature to remember only the concepts of charge and electric field.

When it comes to the second category of knowledge, the comprehension proves to be more significant. For the theoretical subjects such as mathematics and physics, it seems that we are able to master the essence of them by means of memorizing those fundamental principles and important equations. A student may feel as if he has mastered the core of mechanics by keeping in mind the three laws of conservation, from which one can infer all the conclusions of this subject in theory. However, when handling practical problems, the mere mastery of theoretical knowledge is far from enough. In order to apply pure theories into concrete use, we have to achieve a deep understanding of knowledge, developing methods applicable for the practical case, rather than only to memorize several classical situations. Otherwise the theoretical knowledge would lose its true value.

Further, it is widely held that understanding helps remember. For example, to memorize the multiplication table is a difficult task for pupils, but it turns to be easier if one grasps the law of multiplication. It is obviously manifested in the area of humanities as well. Only those works which are capable of getting across the author’s ideas and emotion and hence evoking sympathy in the readers’ mind, like P. B. Shelley’s poems and Shakespeare’s tragedies, could be remembered and spread so far.

To summarize, some of knowledge are to be memorized, and some are to be comprehended. Students would learn little while neglecting either of them. Only by combining the two as one can we learn to be wiser and grasp the very essence of intricate phenomena.

[Kitosdad]

"Students should memorize facts only after they have studied the ideas, trends, and concepts that help explain those facts. Students who have learned only facts have learned very little."

As the statement claims, students get little by learning only factS without understanding the meanings. However, the significance of memorizing is not supposed to be neglected. As a whole, memorizING and comprehension may be compared to a bird’s two wings, both of which are indispensAble.

To make our discussion more efficient, I would like to divide all the knowledge obtained by human-beings into two kinds. The first may be defined as those acquired by means of direct observation, induction or sanctified by usage. The examples may be listed like historical events, economic phenomena and biological taxonomy. The second, unlike the first, involves knowledge from deductive inference and logical reasoning, such as most of academic theories and otherwise.

The first kind of knowledge, which can be taken as the elite of human experiences, is condensed from what we human-beings have accumulated for thousands of years. Understanding THAT knowledge points bit by bit, for those except the experts in related fields, is both unnecessary and impossible, just like that we do not need to know why burning firewood emits heat while making fire to keep warm. As a whole, memorizing some certain facts can help prevent us from being entangled with needlessly time-consuming confusion and disputes. For instance, as to students specialized in physics, further principles such as the interaction between charges and the variation rule of electric fields should be grasped, but it is quite sufficient for a student majoring in literature to remember only the concepts of charge and electric field.

When it comes to the second category of knowledge, the comprehension proves to be more significant. For the theoretical subjects such as mathematics and physics, it seems that we are able to master the essence of them by means of memorizing those fundamental principles and important equations. A student may feel as if he has mastered the core of mechanics by keeping in mind the three laws of conservation, from which one can infer all the conclusions of this subject in theory. However, when handling practical problems, the mere mastery of theoretical knowledge is far from enough. In order to apply pure theories into concrete use, we have to achieve a deep understanding of knowledge, developing methods applicable for the practical case, rather than only to memorize several classical situations. Otherwise the theoretical knowledge would lose its true value.

Further, it is widely held that understanding helps US TO remember. For example, to memorize the multiplication table is a difficult task for VERY YOUNG pupils, but it turns OUT to be easier if one grasps the law of multiplication. It is obviously manifested in the area of humanities as well. Only those works which are capable of getting across the author’s ideas and emotion and hence evoking sympathy in the readers’ mind, like P. B. Shelley’s poems and Shakespeare’s tragedies, could be remembered and spread so far.

To summarize, some of knowledge IS to be memorized, and some IS to be comprehended. Students would learn little while neglecting either of them. Only by combining the two as one can we learn to be wiser and grasp the very essence of intricate phenomena.
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Not bad Atlas, but it was hard work at times understanding just where you were heading.

Kitos. 8/10
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Keep it simple ... Keep it interesting.

[Atlas]

First I shall express thanks as usual, yet I am sorry I didn't catch your comment's opinion very well. Would you be so kind as to point out the places where I failed to express my ideas clearly?

[Kitosdad]

"The first kind of knowledge"

This is the paragraph that I had trouble with. After reading it for the fourth time I now understand it ... I think!
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Keep it simple ... Keep it interesting.

[Atlas]

direct knowledge and inductive inferences....that is almosr what I actually mean. So I haven't expressed the definition well, or the examples are not suitable?