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This essay was written by me (Erin
Billy) and has 593 words. Even though this essay
is relatively long, I wrote it in under 20 minutes.
Your essay should have 300 - 500 words.
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Estimated
TOEFL Essay score: 6.0/6.0
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I disagree wholeheartedly that
learning about the past has no value for those of us
living in the present. In fact, the definition of learning
includes the idea of an accumulation of experiences
from the past. Learning can only take place if we make
an association between things that have happened in
the past or between something in the past and something
that we predict will happen in the future. All knowledge
that we acquire as we grow is from the past—language,
customs, academic subjects, and so on. While it may
be helpful sometimes to be able to overlook previous
knowledge in order to avoid the constraint conformity,
the vast majority of knowledge that we learn is a huge
boost—imagine if each of us had to discover by ourselves
that 2 + 2 = 4! So, in a very real sense, all learning
depends on past events.
We are only able to live in
this world with our current standard of living because
we have learned from the past. We receive knowledge
from the past and we are able to use it and improve
it. We examine our actions in the past and we make judgments
about what was right and what was wrong. Then, it is
hoped, we will attempt to avoid those same mistakes
again. For example, one of the great mistakes all over
the world has been depriving women and the disempowered
classes status in society and many industrialized and
developing countries all over the world are attempting
to avoid such mistakes both in the present and in the
future.
Furthermore, all of the knowledge
that we have today is a result of all the work of our
predecessors. The ancient Greeks developed geometry,
which helped other European scientists analyze the solar
system, which in turn gave us a new understanding of
our place in the universe. The great majority of technology
today depends directly on several thousands of years
of work of past thinkers. To ignore the knowledge of
the past would be to throw away five thousand years
of history and experience.
There is, however, some seemingly
small, but important value to ignoring the past. It
is often the case that history or tradition has the
effect of constraining our thought in the present and
many important philosophical and scientific breakthroughs
have only been possible as a direct result of ignoring
the past. The past, in a sense, can blind us to the
truth, we can become bound by tradition. For example,
at one time, leading thinkers in Europe thought that
the Earth was at the center of the universe and those
who disagreed were persecuted as heretics, even Copernicus,
who we now know was correct about his heliocentric model
of the Solar System. However, scientists were eventually
able to break from the past and accept the new model
of the universe.
In short, learning from and
analyzing the past has enormous value for us and life
as we know it on Earth today would not be possible without
the benefit of thousands of years of history and accumulated
knowledge. It is important, however, to ignore the past
so that we can make a step forward, and such free thinking
should be encouraged, although not at the expense of
past knowledge. Learning from the past is something
like learning from our parents—in most cases, their
past helps us have a better future, but there are times
when we need to make a break from the past and make
a bold step into an unknown future.
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