Being skeptical about things is an innate quality of human nature. This encourages a person to ascertain the things himself, and thus, helps him to hone his skills and concepts. In addition to this, it also helps him to realize the true nature of the subject.
A student should never get satisfied by whatever he is taught, until he investigates the thing himself. Being skeptical about facts, helps him understand the things much better, as he has to go through a lot of books as well as the Internet, which not only helps him to clear his doubts, but also help him to revise the subject. Being skeptical about something that is taught, helps a student to ameliorate his imagination power too, as sometimes, he may ask certain questions like, “What if?”, or, “Can’t it be like this?”. Furthermore, everyone is aware of the adage, “Nobody is perfect in this world”. The above stated adage is not only valid to students and scholars, but to teachers and mentors too. Some errors may creep in, while a teacher is delivering his lecture, due to certain reasons (which he always tries to avoid), or sometimes a student may note down something wrong, so it becomes the responsibility of the student, to check the validity of anything that is taught in the class.
Furthermore, a person who was once skeptical about something, can easily solve a similar problem in the future, and can even help others. But, if a person is not at all skeptical about the taught facts and accepts the things as it is, he cannot explain those facts to others and says, “Well, I have memorized the things as it is, and I think, even you should do the same". This feeling not only hinders his knowledge, but also hampers his imagination power too. While a person who is skeptical about the facts, may find his own shortcuts, rather better methods to solve a problem. For instance, a student is taught, that (zero factorial) 0! = 1, in a mathematics class. If he accepts it as it is, then he does no justice to the subject, and on the contrary, if he tries to find out, that how is 0! = 1 actually, he has to go through a lot of books, and prove it using various formulae of permutations, thus enhancing his ken. Also as an evidence from the past, great scientists could beget their theories only because they were skeptical about the subjects and the beliefs of people, e.g. everyone used to feel that, if two bodies of different weights are thrown from the same height and at the same instant of time, the lighter body would touch the ground late. But Galileo felt skeptical about such beliefs, and he proved, that whatever be the weight of the two bodies, both would touch the ground at the same time.
Hence, in summary, a person should always be skeptical about whatever has been taught. This feeling of suspicion not only enhances his imagination power and knowledge, but helps him to recognize the genius inside him.
TOEFL listening discussions: Why does the student visit the professor?