It is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than it is for them to learn facts

It is hard to deny that compared to understanding theories and concepts, facts are more closely linked with social life, which leads impressionable people to generate the idea that students should pay more attention to learning facts. However, such a statement suffers from logical and factual fallacies, and it should be examined meticulously. As far as knowledge frameworks, thinking ability, and further study are concerned, I firmly hold that understanding theories and concepts is more important for students than learning facts.

First and foremost, understanding theories and concepts are important to students, as theories and concepts help students build up their knowledge frameworks. Meanwhile, reasonable frameworks of knowledge offering foundation and methods in facts learning will be critical to students' future research. Not to mention that if students continue studying a subject without a corresponding knowledge network at the very beginning, it will be hard for students to systematically study and figure out the facts due to their lack of fundamental theories and concepts to understand these facts.

Furthermore, the fact that students can improve their thinking capability in understanding theories and concepts indicates their importance. Take the case of photosynthesis, which is a critical knowledge point in students' Biology class. In the progress of photosynthesis, the chemical components, the elements of photosynthesis, interact with each other at different stages, which might be hard to learn at first. Once students figure out the relationships of these elements, they get the hang of it. Had it not been for understanding the theories and concepts behind photosynthesis progress, students will be confused about complicated relationships between them and lose the chance to train their thinking.

Nevertheless, a voice arises that learning facts is the most efficient way to improve students' practical skills while putting energy and time into understanding theories and concepts is meaningless. Ironically, theories and concepts bring significant long-term benefits to students' further study and sometimes lead them to discover facts. That is the case with the periodic table of the early versions. According to the periodic table concepts, there were some gaps left between certain types of elements, should belong to the undiscovered elements. As expected, a scientist in later decades found those elements and filled them into the gaps one by one. Therefore, this example should perfectly illustrate why concepts are more important than facts.

In a nutshell, I maintain that learning theories and concepts should have a higher priority for students. Admittedly, as my favorite quote from Penelope Fitzgerald goes, it is interesting to note everyone has a different take on the world, a different opinion, and given the same inputs have completely different outputs, and some people may oppose me. However, I believe they will compromise after being exposed to my article.

Votes
Average: 8.2 (2 votes)
Essay Categories

Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, furthermore, however, if, may, nevertheless, so, therefore, while, in fact

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 15.1003584229 126% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 9.8082437276 122% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 13.8261648746 159% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 11.0286738351 100% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 43.0788530466 79% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 52.1666666667 105% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 8.0752688172 62% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2569.0 1977.66487455 130% => OK
No of words: 456.0 407.700716846 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.63377192982 4.8611393121 116% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62105577807 4.48103885553 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.09978748937 2.67179642975 116% => OK
Unique words: 233.0 212.727598566 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.510964912281 0.524837075471 97% => OK
syllable_count: 767.7 618.680645161 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.51630824373 112% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 9.59856630824 94% => OK
Article: 6.0 3.08781362007 194% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 3.51792114695 114% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.86738351254 214% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.94265232975 61% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 20.6003584229 97% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 20.1344086022 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.8610683166 48.9658058833 122% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.45 100.406767564 128% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8 20.6045352989 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.05 5.45110844103 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.53405017921 110% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.5376344086 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 11.8709677419 76% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 3.85842293907 181% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.88709677419 82% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.40680483987 0.236089414692 172% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.114601889283 0.076458572812 150% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.103274849662 0.0737576698707 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.230005916023 0.150856017488 152% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0945985074766 0.0645574589148 147% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 11.7677419355 140% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 58.1214874552 70% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 6.10430107527 144% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 10.1575268817 129% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.67 10.9000537634 144% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.01818996416 105% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 86.8835125448 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 10.002688172 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.0537634409 107% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 10.247311828 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.