TOEFL essay: Are Books More important than experience?

Each person gains experience in many ways. Some people can do it by listening to other peoples experiences. Some people get it from the piece of news they read from books, websites and newspapers or hear from broadcasting Medias. But there are some lessons in life that each individual must gain it by experience to accept. What makes self-experience or other kinds of gaining lessons for example books important can be divided into the following three main categories.

At first, how much a lesson would cost an individual is one great factor. This cost can be any possible danger affecting one’s health and even life or his personal property. For instance I would never try to experience laboratory chemicals, and instead read the available books thoroughly to get all the required information. And in the same category I would not read about flying a kite and instead go on and fly it until I find the experience.

Second, how a book for example can explain special lessons. If someone reads how to swim from a book, even if it is the best book about it and the person tries really hard cannot actually learn swimming until he experiences it in a pool. This example can be said about driving a car too. As an example, when I was eighteen years old, I read the related book about driving to get my driver’s license. But it was not until I sat behind the car and experienced it that I realized what driving is at all!

Finally, how much a lesson was, is or will be related to a person. For example, who never even thinks about bringing a child will not go read or listen about child care lessons. But on the other hand a person who already has a baby and also has trouble in childcare will listen and read very carefully all the brought up lessons.

All in all, depending on the special mentioned cases one can either rely more on experience and on books. But regarding to the categories none of these two cannot be replaced by each other and play their own role. In other words there is no “more important” when mentioning experience and books and both of them together are required.