Newsfeed

• ISDS National Camps Pathways School Gurgaon
  
  January 4

The journey to reach the Indian School's Debating Society's National Camp 2023, was a long and enriching process, spanning three months with registrations for Round One in October and the camps in Chennai coming up on December 26th to 30th.

I participated in Round One, the North Zone Selections, on October 21st. It was a practical debate online in WSDC format. My team and I, Tara Kumar and Nirvi Gupta, worked tirelessly to prepare for the debates, with two debates being prepared motions and three being impromptu as we would get 30 minutes after the motion release to prepare our speeches for the same. It was extremely engaging and information to hear the judges detailed feedback after the debates, and I loved debating against students from other schools and parts of the country! After the debates were done, 42 debaters were selected to move on to the next round based on individual speaker scores. I was ranked 29 in the list, and soon preparations for the next round started.

Round Two was a Screening Quiz online on November 11th which included a judgement on our understanding of WSDC debating fundamentals, logical reasoning and comprehension. In preparation for this quiz, I watched many YouTube videos of earlier tournaments and tips.

Round Three was the Selection Quiz, and at this point in the selection process 150 students would have been taking the quiz. Round Three's quiz was different, in that instead of just debate it assessed our knowledge of current affairs, debate application to real life situations, logical thinking, and speechmaking. For this we had to read up and have prior knowledge of all major current events in international relations, Indian affairs, sports, pop culture, law and order, economics, environment, social movements and more. Questions ranged from motions about how the Chinese president abolished term limits, or the recent Manipur ethnic violence. The speech component included an 8-minute video speech and then a task to create our own 3-minute speech in reply.

Recently, I received the mail that I was selected to be part of the National Camps and cleared Round Three! The camps will be for the top 72 debaters pan India from Grade 7-12,

in trial for the selections of the official Indian Debate Squad who are the debaters representing India on the international stage of WSDC debating. I am grateful for this opportunity to hone my skills and compete at the international stage! This entire journey has made me more confident in my ability and has made me a better debater with a holistic world view and thorough understanding of the format. Looking forward to National Camps!

By: Samaira Singh, MYP 3B