Well, yes, but you need to accelerate first. Just like you don't accelerate a car from a stop light in fifth gear.

I hang out on some cycling subreddits and they commonly get questions from new cyclists that are totally clueless about how gears work. Some of them have it it completely backwards, ie start in a high (slow) gear and progressively shift down to a low (fast) gear as you get up to speed.

I always thought it was intuitive, but I guess I also got my first 5 speed bike around 7 years old or so, I can't really remember. I do remember having an RC car with 2 speeds Ang getting the principles pretty quick: gear one would accelerate faster but top out quick, while gear 2 had slower pick up but higher top speed.