TOEFL essay - PR: from-books knowledge and experiential knowledge

It has been said, "Not everything that is learned is contained in books." Compare and contrast
knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which
source is more important? Why?

------------ Thank you for correcting me --------------------------------

There are two main channels that people acquire knowledge from: experience and books. Although experience brings us pragmatic knowledge that is more suitable for own us, I still believe that "books are the best teacher", an old cliche, just because containing knowledge networks of all humanity would bring much more serial benefits.

Knowledge that's from books is more abundant than our own experiential knowledge. It's obivious because knowledge that we gain through experience is limited to our position, our ability, and our opinions. In contrast, books can tell you so many thing about this world-even where you've never seen, about the history-when is impossible for you to spend. In other words, from-books knowledge is very helpful for what you can't experient by yourseft.

Nevertheless, abundance does not mean everything. There is something we can only learn from experience, no book can tell exactly about it. For example, before, I read a psychological book, it tells me about how to make friend. However, I really couldn't have made friend if I had followed the steps in the book. In reality, the steps are just general theory; they need to be adjusted to suit with the context at the time. And what I know to adjust was just what I learned when I was trying to make friend.

In conclusion, both from-books knowledge and experiential knowledge have their own benefits. However, I put more appreciation toward from-books knowledge. This source is not only voluminous but also having many fundamental things which are the core to build our own experiential knowledge on.

There are plenty of books. Some authors suggest this while others believe in another way. In fact, many books are also experiential knowledge. They are just not yours, but other people's experiences.

There are also different kinds of knowledge. I would say one is hard one is soft. For hard I mean something that is proven by facts like history, science, etc. You can think of that as those we learn from the classrooms. But that doesn't make up our whole life. We also need to get experience from participating in activities, working, interacting with people, traveling, etc. I call those soft knowledge. Even those you can read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (a very famous book by Dale Carnegie), but you can't really learn if you don't "practice" it in life.

Hope that gives you more ideas.

Start with a sentence to get the reader's attention -- some interesting statement about "acquiring knowledge."

That way, your first para will be one sentence longer.

I think this would be better if you contrasted experiential knowledge against knowledge that comes "from reading." That would make the essay more powerful. But I do see that in the essay prompt they said books, so maybe you should leave it alone.

I agree that reading is more powerful than other experiences. You can experience a lecture without paying attention, but when you read something you are really giving it your attention. Reading is deliberate, sophisticated, and meditative.

A college professor once told me that the gluteus maximus (the butt) is the most important muscle, because it is what enabled early humans to walk upright. Walking upright, they used their hands for writing symbols, and through symbols they made it possible to build upon the knowlege of previous generations.

So, it's through writing and reading that humanity has come so far. Now we have all sorts of crazy technology.

You might want to deal a bit more in specifics. So, you could point out that reading is good for learning about things it would be difficult or impossible to experience. So, black holes, the surface of Mars, the inside of an active volcano, etc., are all things best learned about by reading, since it would be very difficult and dangerous to to experience them directly. Reading is also useful for preparing to try a new activity. Reading a book can't teach you as much about hiking as actually walking through the woods, but it can tell you that you need, say, a compass to avoid getting lost before you have to learn that the hard way.

Experience, however, is better at building good judgment, and for mastering practical skills. Pretty much anything that requires knowledge to be deeply internalized has to be learned through experience. You can't learn typing by reading about how to type. You can improve your chess game by studying books, but the only way to become a grandmaster is to play around 10000 games or so, preferably while you are relatively young (this will work for pretty much anyone, though. Grandmasters aren't smarter than regular people; they've just played more chess).

Note the specific examples I've included above (black holes, hiking, typing, chess). You want similar examples in your own essay. As for which you find more important, that is entirely up to you, though I tend to agree with Kevin. Writing is the one thing, possibly the only thing, that only humans do. Ants wage war, lions practice infanticide, cats play, chimps use tools, dolphins communicate using rudimentary language, but only humans record information in inert media.

In conclusion , both from-books knowledge and experiential knowledge have their own benefits. However, I put more appreciation toward from-books knowledge. This source is not only voluminous but also having many fundamental things which are the core to build our own experiential knowledge on.

you do not have to say "in conclusion". It is obvious that your last paragraph is your conclusion, so why do you have to say "in conclusion".

My English teacher would mark it as incorrect.

Bye

This is quite correct, as far as it goes. "In conclusion" is a lazy way of introducing the end of your essay, and should be unnecessary. I don't know if it is such a bad thing for a TOEFL essay, though. It has the advantage of being part of a general formula for quickly writing a particular type of essay, which is important in a timed essay, and is not the sort of error that TOEFL judges will dock marks for.