Some people believe that the best way of learning about life is by listening to the advice of family and friends. Other people believe that the best way of learning about life is through personal experience. Compare the advantages of these two different ways of learning about life. Which do you think is preferable? Use specific examples to support your preference.

参考分析：

两个观点都有些极端。所以，先比较分析，再选择自己的立场。

听从他人劝告和建议的优缺点：综合许多人的看法，可能更容易得到正确的答案；但是久而久之(in the course of time; as time passes)，可能会变得没有主见(lose one's own judgment)

自己做决定、从自己的经验出发的优缺点：可能不全面，但是能够培养自己的观察能力，分析能力。

不同的事情，要有不同的选择。

听家里人和朋友的建议可以学到更多的人生哲理

（1）家里人和朋友更加有经验，因为很多事情都经历过

（2）家里人和朋友和自己关系好，不会欺骗自己，他们的意见都是真实的

（3）有些事情必须要从家里人和朋友中获得，自己是无法体验的。

参考范文：

The best way of learning

As life is rigorous and challenging for most of people (excluding children who have a silver spoon in their mouths right after they were born), everyone needs to take advices from others or accumulate experiences to face the life. However, people have different ways to learn about life. Some tend to learn by listening to advices of family and friends. Meanwhile, others prefer to learn through personal experiences. In this essay, I will discuss the advantages of these two different ways.

Some people like to understand life by listening to advices of people around them. This offers a good chance to gain knowledge and experiences from others who have already experienced hardships and tasted the bitterness of life. This method is much convenient and faster than the other one because there are a lot of experiences in life that have already been experienced by other people. Other people's opinions and advices simply offer us a shortcut to success.

On the other hand, young people, however, prefer to learn about life through their personal experiences. However, to acquire these experiences, one has to pay a price. One must have to experience a lot of failures before he/she can savior the sweetness of success. It may also take a long time for someone to stand up from his failures. In addition, it requires a lot of time for people to accumulate these valuable experiences.

Comparing and contracting these two approaches, I personally prefer the way that of listening to the advice of family and friends. This is the best and easiest way for young people like me to start a real life.