You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
It’s said that learning from experience is better than learning from books. Do you agree or disagree?
Give reasons for your answer and include relevant examples from your own knowledge and experience.
Write at least 250 words.

MODEL ANSWER:

There is a common belief that experience teaches a person better than books. Though this is true to a greater extent, I feel, in certain situations, the opposite can also happen.

The first and the foremost reason why I think experience has a clear upper hand over books is that it gives us the first-hand experience. To be precise, a person can get a subjective feeling when he experiences something, and this may remain in his life for a longer duration than what he learns from books. The second reason is because of the fact that one cannot learn everything from books. For example, driving skills can be better acquired by driving a vehicle with the assistance of an expert driver, than learning theory related to it.

Another reason which supports my argument is that most of the things which you experience are real. In this case, one can satisfy his mind that he does not believe what others say. This persuades many to give importance to practical learning. Finally, learning from experience has almost no boundaries. For instance, a person can learn cooking or gardening whenever he wishes, no matter where he is.

However, books can also prove better in certain occasions. Books generally contain information gathered by multiple persons based on multiple experiences, whereas personal experience is just pertains to a person. For example, information about the solar eclipse and lunar eclipse are gathered by many people, by their close observations, and this is nearly impractical in case of personal experience.

To conclude, though there are certain situations when books can teach a person better, I think in most cases, experience is a better teacher.