做事，听别人讲，读书——那种方法对你而言是最好的。

451 words　　2004-12-1写于北京航空航天大学
When I was a small boy I learnt much from the countless stories that my grand father told me. In my childhood even my neighbors told me endless stories concerning about people, events, and animals that might have never existed in the real world. Growing older and older, I learnt much from doing things and from discussing things with my colleagues. The three ways of learning: by reading, listening, and doing all benefit me, but weighing them with a more insightful eye, I especially prefer reading the most.

Reading builds the most part of my knowledge structure. It is mainly through learning from reading that I understand the world around me and inside me. It is also through reading that I learn the social convenance and etiquette. For instance, reading American literature I learnt that the descendants of the Mayflower are actually the puritans who emphasize both pragmatic gains and spiritual demands. Reading the great book of Bible, I learnt that one should not only love the neighbors but also love the enemies, if one has. When the right cheek is smote I will turn the left. Such an attitude of living derivers directly from reading a variety of books. This knowledge finally crystallizes into wisdom.

Reading also brings me the joy, sorrow, and tranquility. Reading helps me forget the envy, revenge, hostility, anger, fury, and wrath, and instead helps me start to love, tolerate, sympathize, admire, and respect. Reading a Universe in the Nutshell by Stephen Hawking provokes me to introspectively contemplate the relationship between science and man. From this books I firmly believe that time, space, and other measures such length, width, and height are but an image that human creates but human is in no case the creator. This further pushes me to conclude that since humans are creatures, the conflicts, controversies, and competitions are all virtually futile. Of course this is not a conclusion in its logical sense. It at the most is an idea or ideal shaped by reading. Certainly the twenty years long reading greatly enriches my life and colors my emotion world.

Reading brings to me clearer and clearer the true meaning of life. According to what I read from National Geography, the meaning of life is to make more life. But reading Buddhism books and canons I revise the understanding of the so called scientists. Today, it is my belief that the meaning of life is to love. By love, I am not meant to refer the sex between females and males. Rather I mean a faith in life, work, and man. With this faith I can readily go through the endless troubles and tribulations that I might encounter in the mundane world.

例题二
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？

不是所有的东西能从书本中学来。 比较经验知识和书本知识。 哪个更重要。
503 words　　2004-12-1写于北京航空航天大学
Is it possible to tell whether the left hand is more useful than is the right one? It would be ridiculous to argue that knowledge gained from experience outweighs that gained from books. In fact, both are vital in human learning. Learning from books and learning from experience are just two hands of a human and two wings of a bird. Each plays a role.

Learning from books is one of the most prevailing means adopted in schools and universities world around for spreading knowledge. Compared with learning from experience, learning from books are wider in range and deeper in contents. This is evident. For it is impossible for the contemporary people to experience those happened in the past, people only can learn knowledge about the past through reading documents, books, and other written materials. History and archeology depends heavily on learning from books.

Besides the limitation of time, space restrictions also make it imperative that people learn from books. It is hard, even impossible, for human beings to discover the outer space and the deep sea bottom. For instance, the formidable, inaccessible, and hostile sea floor makes it rather hard for experts to dive into the sea to experience the alien world in person. The majority of the public can only obtain the knowledge from reading, watching, or listening. As the information about the remote solar system or beyond, learning from experience sounds rather naïve. Landing on the moor might be a fascinatingly sensuous. But how many of the people realize the hazards it might entail to the astronomers? If people want to discover the mars, other stars, or quasars, then who can be the first to experience the voyage in person?

Considering the spatiotemporal limitations, the current technology makes it impossible for the public to learn a large volume of knowledge from experience. But this is not meant to indicate that learning from experience is less important. Quite on the contrary, learning from experience is essential under most circumstances and is rather efficient and effective.

Some fundamental human skills must be learnt from experience whereas the knowledge from books is only auxiliary. No one learns playing tennis merely from reading tennis books. Swimming is another telling case. Even one has read a colossal volume of books concerning swimming, never can he or she master the arts of swimming until he or she has exercised thousands of times. Neither can one learn a foreign language well without direct experience of using the language. Dictionary can tell the meaning of each word, but only the real experience makes it possible for one to understand the language. The examples are countless.

Therefore, both learning from the book and learning from the experiences are critical in pushing the boundaries of human understanding. Under certain conditions, it makes a sense to say that one way is better or more important than the other. Nevertheless without defining the exact case, by no means can one conclude whether learning from books is more vital than learning from experience.