The selection of the national debate is undoubtedly the most important event that a debater can attend. It takes place once or twice a year, with the purpose of selecting five team members to represent our country at the Worlds Schools Debate Championship.
For candidates to qualify for the selection, each is expected to send a researched document on a certain topic, a letter of intent and a CV. The files that the candidates send should contain information about themselves and why they would like to participate, as well a thorough analysis of a motion that is set roughly a week before the selection. This time, the motion was “This house believes that we should never negotiate with the leaders of Iran.”
The judges then narrow down the likely participates to 12, from which 5 will make up the chosen team. The candidates then compete against each other in several rounds of impromptu motions and are organized into randomly chosen teams A, B, C and D. Then, each team plays a match against each of the other ones, so in the end each team plays a total of three matches.
The two days of selection are full of emotion, tension, eagerness, frustration and even anger. But if you learn to bottle up these feelings, they will change into satisfaction and pride at the end, when you will hear your name called out among the winners! It takes some suffering to achieve satisfaction and that’s unarguably true, but I can promise you, it's worth it!
Theodora Dragan
Member of the Romania National Debate Team 2011
To read Theodora’s full description of the selection process of the Romania National Debate Team, click here.
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