GRE写作备考2012:GRE作文范文大全(20)
acquiring new facts and information, as the speaker asserts? While our everyday experience
might lend credence to this assertion, further reflection reveals its fundamental inconsistency
with our Western view of how we acquire knowledge. Nevertheless, a careful and thoughtful
definition of knowledge can serve to reconcile the two.
On the one hand, the speaker's assertion accords with the everyday experience of working
professionals. For example, the sort of"book'I knowledge that medical, law, and business
students acquire, no matter how extensive, is of little use unless these students also learn to
accept the uncertainties and risks inherent in professional practice and in the business world.
Any successful doctor, lawyer, or entrepreneur would undoubtedly agree that new precedents
and challenges in their fields compel them to acknowledge the limitations of their knowledge,
and that learning to accommodate these limitations is just as important in their professional
success as knowledge itself.
Moreover, the additional knowledge we gain by collecting more information often
diminishes-sometimes to the point where marginal gains turn to marginal losses. Consider, for
instance, the collection of financial-investment information. No amount of knowledge can
eliminate the uncertainty and risk inherent in financial investing. Also, information overload can
result in confusion, which in turn can diminish one's ability to assimilate information and apply
it usefully. Thus, by recognizing the limits of their knowledge, and by accounting for those limits
when making decisions, investment advisors can more effectively serve their clients.
On the other hand, the speaker's assertion seems self-contradictory, for how can we know
the limits of our knowledge until we've thoroughly tested those limits through exhaustive
empirical observation--that is, by acquiring facts and information. For example, it would be
tempting to concede that we can never understand the basic forces that govern all matter in
the universe. Yet due to increasingly precise and extensive fact-finding efforts of scientists, we
might now be within striking distance of understanding the key laws by which all physical
matter behaves. Put another way, the speaker's assertion flies in the face of the scientific
method, whose fundamental tenet is that we humans can truly know only that which we
observe. Thus Francis Bacon, who fn:st formulated the method, might assert that the speaker
is fundamentally incorrect. 感谢您阅读《GRE作文范文大全(20) 》一文,出国留学网(liuxue86.com)编辑部希望本文能帮助到您。
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