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Grade 9: Striving for Brilliance at the Freshman Chinese Debate Competition

September 17, 2023

The 2023 Freshman Chinese Debate Competition was officially launched on the third week of the academic year. The tournament was a three-on-three competition, with three representatives from each class competing against one another. This debate tournament is a valuable opportunity for students to sharpen their critical thinking ability, speaking proficiency, and to showcase their strong debate skills. In addition, debates not only enhance mutual understanding among the students, but also cultivate the team spirit of the representatives competing.

The debate tournament was divided into preliminary, rematch, and final rounds. The preliminary round was held in the third week, in which all twelve ninth-grade classes participated and engaged in an intense back-and-forth event.

The topic presented to the debaters in the preliminary round was “whether or not the mainstream online meme culture is detrimental to the mental well-being of today’s people". Each round was divided into six segments: the first speakers’ constructive speech (3 minutes each), the opponents’ rebuttal (1.5 minutes each), the second speakers’ defense argument (2.5 minutes each), crossfire (3 minutes each), preparation time (1 minute), and the conclusion speech (3 minutes each).

With immense confidence, the speakers on both sides assertively proposed their respective insights and boldly disputed the opponent’s claims. They created compelling arguments by incorporating reliable data, both teams emphasizing rigorous logic, and included profound as well as productive perspectives. The opposition team argued that internet memes are an effective way to express emotions and increase the amount of socializing, which helped enrich the mental well-being of people, while the proposition side asserted that meme culture is a form of entertainment meant to precisely transmit a larger idea and is unable to support the needs of mental health for people. The persuasive and articulated debaters sparked an interest in the audience and evoked intriguing thoughts revolving around online meme culture. The speakers were congratulated by hearty applause from the audience at the end of each round.

After three days and six exciting matches, six classes have successfully advanced to the rematch round. Congrats to the winning teams, and we look forward to their outstanding performance next week!

(Written by 9(2) Ethan, 9(6) Aeryn Pictures by 9(2) Karen, 9(9)Fay Supervised by Yanjie Yao, Jin Xu Reviewed by Qian Zuo)