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?
This response is estimated at Band 6.0. Can you write a better one?
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Sample Response
People learn and gain practical experienceare learning and practicing throughout their livesthrough their entire life. I believe that life experience and practice are the fundamental drivers ofbasic reasons of humankind’s evolutionthe humankind’s evolution. However, in my opinion, knowledge gained from books plays a very important role in modern lifethe modern life.
The most obviousmost obviously important advantage of books is that they hold all knowledge gained by previous generations. People write books about their discoveries and inventions, which are gained through practice and experience. This knowledge is accumulated in books that are passed from generation to generation. So, basically, people get knowledge of previous achievementsall knowledge about the previous achievements from books, analyze it and thenthan, based on their experienceaccording to their experience and new data, write new books. In this case, books are the repositoriesholders of humankind’s experience.
For example, in earlier timesat old times people thought that the Earth was flat. It was concluded from observations and studdying. However, later generationsthe next generations, using the experience of their ancestors, proved that the Earth was round.
Personally, I think that books are very important because they are able to give people fundamental knowledgethe basic and fundamental knowledge. Books store history, important eventshistory, the important events and discoveries. Without them it is difficult and sometimes impossible to move forward, make new discoveries and inventions.
To summarize, I think a person should gaintake basic knowledge from books because it will help themhim to develop their own inventions, draw conclusions and make discoveriesmake his own inventions, conclusions and discoveries. Only using both books and one’s experience one can move forward.
Not everything that is learned is contained in books
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response presents a broadly clear explanation of how books preserve accumulated human knowledge, and its central message remains easy to follow. However, the comparison with learning through experience is limited, the final preference is only partly explicit, and recurring language errors reduce precision. The highest priority is to develop the experiential side directly and then make a consistent, well-supported judgement about which source matters more.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response addresses books in some detail but gives limited direct comparison with experience and an insufficiently decisive answer to which source is more important.
Develop a separate, supported argument about experiential learning and use it to justify one clear comparative judgement.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response is organised into relevant paragraphs with broadly clear progression, although ideas about books, experience, and invention are repeated rather than advanced.
Give each body paragraph a distinct comparative purpose and use linking to show how the two sources differ or complement each other.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is adequate for the topic and includes some less common items, but spelling and collocational errors repeatedly weaken precision.
Improve control of common academic collocations and proofread forms such as 'then', 'studying', and 'in earlier times'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mixture of simple and complex structures communicates the main ideas, but article, preposition, agreement, and sentence-structure errors recur.
Prioritise accurate article use and revise awkward structures so comparisons and conclusions are expressed in complete, controlled sentences.