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?

　　Model Answer 1:

　　"Experience is the best teacher" is an old cliché, but I agree with it. We   can learn a lot of important things from books, but the most important lessons   in life come from our own experiences. Throughout the different stages of life,   from primary school to university to adulthood, experience teaches us many   skills we need for life.

　　As children in primary school, we learn facts and information from books,   but that is not all we learn in school. On the playground we learn how to make   friends. In our class work, we learn how it feels to succeed and what we do when   we fail. We start to learn about the things we like to do and the things we   don't. We don't learn these things from books, but from our experiences with our   friends and classmates.

　　In our university classes, we learn a lot of information and skills we will   need for our future careers, but we also learn a lot that is not in our   textbooks. In our daily lives both in class and out of class, we learn to make   decisions for ourselves. We learn to take on responsibilities. We learn to get   along with our classmates, our roommates, and our workmates. Our successes and   failures help us develop skills we will need in our adult lives. They are skills   that no book can teach us.

　　Throughout our adulthood, experience remains a constant teacher. We may   continue to read or take classes for professional development. However, our   experiences at work, at home, and with our friends teach us more. The triumphs   and disasters of our lives teach us how to improve our careers and also how to   improve our relationships and how to be the person each one of us wants to   be.

　　Books teach us a lot, but there is a limit to what they teach. They can   give us information or show us another person's experiences. These are valuable   things, but the lessons we learn from our own experiences, from childhood   through adulthood, are the most important ones we learn.

　　Model Answer 2:

　　People are learning and practicing through their entire life. I believe   that life experience and practice are the basic reasons of the humankind's   evolution. However, in my opinion, knowledge gained from books plays a very   important role in the modern life.

　　The most 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 all knowledge about the previous   achievements from books, analyze it and than, according to their experience and   new data, write new books. In this case, books are the holders of humankind's   experience.

　　For example, at old times people thought that the Earth was flat. It was   concluded from observations and studdying. However, the 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 the basic and fundamental knowledge. Books store history, 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 take basic knowledge from books   because it will help him to make his own inventions, conclusions and   discoveries. Only using both books and one’s experience one can move forward.