It is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than learn fac

[Jingyichen]

Hi All ,

I am new to this forum. I will take TOEFL test on Mar 26th. Please my essay and make your comment.
Thanks for all your help in advance.
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One week before an exam in libraries, it is not difficult to see people holding books, reading and do their best to remember the important facts. However, from my point of view, I completely agree that it is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than learn facts.
The first reason I want to put forward is that learning facts can only solve one kind of problems, while understanding the ideas and concepts gives people a competitive edge in dealing with other similar issues. For example, one time I didn’t grasp an important idea my teacher taught in class, but just remember the fact. When I did my homework after class, I found the problem was different from the case we discussed in class, and then I was confused and had no idea about it. After I read the book carefully and understood the idea, I worked out the problem easily. From then on, I never just remember the facts but try my best to understand the ideas and concepts, which enables me to solve many different problems.
The second reason to reinforce my view is that understanding ideas and concepts is important for self-study. There is little doubt that teachers can’t teach us everything and we need to study by ourselves in most of our lifetime. Simply learning facts of every case will take lots of time. On the other hand, if we understand ideas and concepts at first and then analyzing a certain case will be much easier for us and won’t take up much time.
However, the disadvantages of understanding ideas and concepts cannot be easily left out even though it has many tremendous benefits. Due to the limitation of knowledge, sometimes we can’t understand some ideas or concepts well after thinking for a long time. But if we have learned some relevant knowledge, we can understand them in few minutes. So in such situation, understanding ideas may seem to be a waste of time and learning facts is more efficient. As far as I am concerned, its minor disadvantage can be neglected owing to the striking advantages of it mentioned above.
Considering all the analysis above, we may safely come to the conclusion that it is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than learn facts. As for some ideas and concepts we can’t understand right away, we can first learn facts before acquiring relevant knowledge.

TOEFL listening lectures: What aspect of Carl Sandburg's life does the professor mainly discuss?

[Katty2010]

One week before an exam in libraries, it is not difficult RARE to see people holding books, reading and doING their best to remember the important facts. However, from my point of view, I completely agree that it is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than learn facts.

The first reason I want to put forward is that learning facts can only solve one kind of problems, while understanding the ideas and concepts gives people a competitive edge in dealing with other similar issues. For example, one time ONCE I didn’t grasp an important idea my teacher taught in class, but just remember the fact. When I did my homework after class, I found the problem was different from the case we discussed in class, and then I was confused and had no idea about it. After I read the book carefully and understood the idea, I worked out the problem easily. From then on, I never just remember the facts but try my best to understand the ideas and concepts, which enables me to solve many different problems.

The second reason to reinforce my view is that understanding ideas and concepts is important for self-study. There is little doubt that teachers can’t teach us everything and we need to study by ourselves in most of our lifetime. Simply learning facts of every case will take lots of time. On the other hand, if we understand ideas and concepts at first, and then analyzing a certain case will be much easier for us and won’t take up much time.

However, the disadvantages of understanding ideas and concepts cannot be easily left out even though it has many tremendous benefits. Due to the limitation of knowledge, sometimes we can’t understand some ideas or concepts well after thinking for a long time. But if we have learned some relevant knowledge, we can understand them in few minutes. So in such situation, understanding ideas may seem to be a waste of time and learning facts is more efficient. As far as I am concerned, its minor disadvantage can be neglected owing to the striking advantages of it mentioned above.

Considering all the analysis above, we may safely come to the conclusion that it is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than learn facts. As for some ideas and concepts we can’t understand right away, we can first learn facts before acquiring relevant knowledge.

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Good essay.
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