IELTS: Skills instead of Knowledge_Advantage and Disadvantage

In the modern world, more and more emphasis is being placed on the acquisition of practical skills rather than knowledge from textbooks and other sources.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this trend.
In this day and age, the demand for jobs is rising as a result of overpopulation. Accordingly, in order to get a good job, many people assume that acquiring practical skills is more important and necessary that amassing knowledge from textbooks and other sources. This essay will elaborate on the advantages and disadvantages of this trend.

First and foremost, it cannot be denied that practical skills are crucial to one's career prospects, as a skills-based education can bridge the transition between academic life and working life. When a student is prepared with skills for particular jobs like using computers skill for an IT designer or sewing skill for a tailor, he tends to deal with difficulties at work and adapt to the working environment better and faster. According to a recent research, 73% of students who were familiarized with practical skills at school succeeded in a shorter time than those who didn't. Therefore, it is vital to develop practical skills.

This trend, however, drives learners to a drawback. It is stated by some people that a skills-based education can boost students' employment prospects. This is certainly true, but gaining knowledge from textbooks and other sources including TVs or the Internet is indispensable. The reason is that such information acquaints students with the basic knowledge that they cannot do without. For example, it takes some qualifications to practice as doctors or lawyers. Consequently, students need to read a lot of books and make the best use of other sources of information to improve their knowledge of such specific fields. That is why if the acquisition of knowledge is considered less important that that of practical skills, students will lack the ability to work in some certain areas.

All in all, a greater deal of emphasis is being placed on developing practical skills instead of knowledge from books and the like nowadays. It has both advantages and disadvantages that are worth contemplating. If schools can combine and balance a skills-based education and a knowledge-based one, their students will benefit a lot from it.

Please give me some feedback. Any comments are appreciated!

skills is more important and necessary than that amassing knowledge


U can write this sentence like this :" This trend may provide some questions in the mind that :"what are the positive and negative aspects of this trend?" and "does its advantages outweigh the disadvantages?


For making the example more believable, you should add some more detail to it. Where and when was the research conducted?

skill-based or skill oriented


repeat of the opening sentence of the previous paragraph


instead of on acquiring knowledge

Thank you Ahmad, Bing and Duminda for your suggestions! I will look into them.

Oh and I have a question: I used to write very long sentences, but in this essay, I've tried my best to keep everything short and simple. Is it working?

Yes.... you are improving : )

Your word count is 341 words and I think it's fairly long in comparison with the time limit (approx 40min). So I think u should make it shorter :-)

@Mai Linh: Actually I timed myself and I finished the whole thing in 43min., but still, thank you for the advice. I'll try to make it shorter next time.

I think the ideal length could be between 260 and 280 words.The more you write,the more errors you make.So be strict with yourself.If you can write an essay like this in 45 minutes ,then you are definetly able to write a better one in 35 minutes,which I think,have paramount importance.For instance ,you can this extra time for proofreading which will help you to reduce the obvous errors in spelling and grammer.Sometimes ,you may be able to add one or more examples in your essay .As a result your essay will be more attractive.

For all this ,spend some time for preparing your paragraphs.JUST WRITE WHAT IS NECESSORY.

@jobymonbj: thank you for the advice! I'm trying to improve one thing at a time, and right now, I'm trying to write short sentences and stick to the structure with examples and concession here and there.

I agree that it's better to make the whole essay shorter and spend more time on other things. Will do my best!

I think the essay containing 341 words is not too long. If you practice you can write even more in a short time. I wrote about 300 words for task 1 and more than 350 words for task two, and finally, after editing my works, I had 10 minutes to put my head on the desk and rest :DDD

Wow you must be so good at writing!
I'm just afraid that when I'm practicing, I write a long essay in more time than I should, then in a real test, in case I freak out or sth crops up I won't be able to finish it (by "finish" I mean the essay has a good structure, coherence, good flow of ideas, a wide range of vocab and some techniques I've been told) in a short period of time.

Writing a lot will make me write faster without making mistakes right?

Yes, of course you're right. But as I said, if you practice you can. I remember that when I was preparing for the test I could not finish the task 1 and 2 during 1 hour, especially task one was realy hard for me. I wrote more than 150 essays to find how I should manage my time.

By the way, you are really good in writing, and I'm sure that you can easiliy get 7 or higher if you write like what you post in this forum

Wow 150 essays? Really? Looks like I've got a long long way to go :) practice makes perfect, that is so true!
And thank you for the compliment.

I just wanted to add an interesting proverb;
Get paid for what you know rather than what you do
while talking about practical skills and textbook knowledge.

That's interesting. I'll consider using it in my essay. It's great to get to know sth new. Thank you, Baniya!

You are welcome! That's the good part of EF. We can exchange ideas and learn from each other.

P.S.I wish native speakers could also be active enough like us and comment on our works. : ).

I've learnt a lot from you and other members on this forum. And yeah, if native speakers could comment on our work, that would help even more! :)