The last day of tryouts for debate students who want to move up to varsity is Wednesday after school. Students will be assigned a position on the United States having a moral obligation to provide universal health care for its citizens in which advanced debate students will be judging.

“Tryouts are going to consist of a mini Lincoln-Douglas debate so competitors create an affirmative or a negative case on the resolution whether universal health care is an obligation,” senior Ria Bhasin said. “Competitors were assigned a side and they just have to prepare their case and then they do four minute speeches, four minute rebuttal speeches and they ask each other questions and then we can access their speaking skills from that.”

The debates will be viewed based off speaking abilities, information, and critical thinking, all of which have been looked at during debate one classes in preparation.

“I hope to gain experience, most of all, because I’m very passionate about debate and I think that the tryout process will help me learn what I can improve on and what I’m already good at,” freshman Sanjana Dandu said. “I wrote a constructive speech, which is basically an introduction, and to help strengthen my case, I also researched a little more just so I knew a few facts for rebuttal. I wouldn’t have known how to prepare for my case if I wasn’t in debate one, so tryouts would have been much more difficult.”

At the end of this month, debate students who tried out will find out if they made varsity debate or not.

“Gain from this, I hope to gain new competitors for next year,” Bhasin said. “Specifically qualified people to lead our team after all our senior leave and continue the legacy that debate has brought upon for the past four years.”