Band 8 Academic Sample Essay

Some people believe that we cannot learn anything from the past for our life today, while others believe that history is a valuable source of information to understand human's life. Discuss both views and give your opinion. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

History is the living record of humanity's past endeavors — its failed attempts as much as its successes — all of which have shaped, in one way or another, the world we inhabit today. Some argue that the past is inert and should have no claim on the present, while others regard it as a living guidebook for humankind. Both positions carry a degree of force, yet I am firmly persuaded by the latter, for the reasons set out below.

A virtually universal principle of scientific inquiry is to begin where others have left off, a convention captured by the familiar maxim that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. To illustrate, my own MA supervisor repeatedly urged me to avoid revisiting questions that had already been settled and to pursue genuinely new lines of enquiry instead. In a world that is changing and evolving at an unprecedented pace, humanity simply cannot afford to leave the past behind and start over; such an approach would be counterproductive on almost every level, to say nothing of the waste it would inflict on collective human experience.

Many nevertheless argue for abandoning history on the grounds that circumstances have changed beyond recognition, that today's world is far more expansive, and that much of what humans once believed has since been proven wrong. Although this may appear persuasive on a superficial level, it is in fact self-defeating, since humanity has always learned precisely through trial and error. Invention, for instance, has never been a single attempt that happened to succeed: Thomas Edison is said to have endured hundreds of failures before he finally illuminated his modest bulb, which went on to become one of the most transformative inventions in history. The same logic applies to historical experience more broadly: it is trial and error in the past that has furnished us with the vast and intricate systems now underpinning most of our lives. Moreover, we are under no obligation to accept the past uncritically. We are equipped to be selective about what informs and develops our presence on this human-centred planet, and drawing on the most illuminating historical episodes will help pave the way towards a brighter and more sustainable future.

In conclusion, humanity has attained its present level of development only by learning from, studying and analyzing its past failures rather than repeating them. Although parts of that past are undeniably disastrous, there always remains something to learn and reflect on that can steer the human experience toward a better future.