Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
It is more important for the students to understand ideas and concepts than it is for them to learn facts.
Comprehension of ideas and concepts is a significant part of education. The ideas and concepts the students nowadays learn at school are results of decades of research, efforts, and wisdom. Some people agree that it is more important for the students to comprehend ideas and concepts that it is for them to learn facts; others disagree. In many societies, this question has become a contentious issue of debate among the psychologists and caused quite a stir in numerous circles and camps. From my perspective, I disagree with the statement and here are my justifications.
To begin with, without facts, the students can hardly comprehend the ideas and concepts. We all accept ideas via experience, which is based on the facts we meet in our lives. Without the support of facts, myriad students and scholars may reject some innovative ideas and concepts that might seem contradictory with natural phenomena. A vivid example is Newton’s law of gravity. When he observed an apple fell from the tree, the concept of a gravity field on the earth came to his mind, which was refuted by contemporary researchers and scientists, since it was new and quite strange for them. Therefore, learning facts is essential.
Besides the above-mentioned reason, exclusive of facts, the ideas and concepts, no matter how complex and sophisticated, are useless. How water flows, how birds fly, and how the sun rises are thoughts based on meticulous observation on natural phenomena and facts. Lacking these facts, people, regardless of their high intelligence and smartness, can’t grasp what a fluid is, can’t build a flying machine, and can’t figure out our solar system. Any impressive concept, which is not derived from knowledge about natural facts, will be wrong, unsatisfactory, and worthless.
Finally, by learning facts, the students can understand the ideas and concepts better. Knowledge about natural facts can enhance the students’ performance at school due to deeper comprehension of concepts. The more the students gain information about the facts, the better the information will be consolidated in their memories. Moreover, they can employ these facts to figure out the patterns of nature phenomena, and then come to novel ideas and peaceful solutions to our current environmental problems. Indeed, there is more to studying the facts than meets the eyes. Thus, studying facts is imperative.
All in all, although some sophisticated people may prove the otherwise, I still support my position. Based on the arguments in the body paragraphs, learning facts serves a superior function for the students and aids them to improve their score and performance at school.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 27 in 30
Category: Excellent Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2171 1500
No. of Different Words: 225 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.096 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.805 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.522 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.097 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.348 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.326 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.509 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.113 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5