My World Scholar’s Cup Experience
By: Ella Grace Russo
Debating in various forms has a long history and can be traced back to the philosophical and political debates of Ancient Greece. The World Scholar’s Cup is an international team debate-focused academic program with more than 15,000 students participating from over 65 countries every year.
The World Scholar’s Cup consists of 4 activities, the Scholar’s Challenge, which is a multiple choice test that covers different topics; Collaborative Writing, where we write an essay and get to discuss and review it together; The Team Debate, in which teams of three compete against each other; and the Scholar’s Bowl, where we answer quiz-like questions in a theatre together as a team.
It all started at the beginning of this year, when my friend and I were called after school to a meeting. We patiently waited for everyone to arrive as we nervously thought about why we were there. As soon as everyone had sat down, my school principal began to tell us why we were there. She explained that every one of us had been chosen to join a prestigious academic competition called ‘The World Scholar’s Cup’. My best friend and I were super excited. After the meeting we began to research and explore all about this competition, which made us even more excited to join. We were informed that we would have to have multiple practices beforehand, but this was no problem considering how rare an opportunity like this comes by.
We began to practice once a week for the month leading up to the competition. Then came the day. When we arrived, we were greeted with welcoming snacks and drinks. After the quick snacking session, we had a fun interactive opening session hosted by Daniel Berdichevsky and Olivia Watson. On our first day we had the Team Debate, Collaborative Writing and the Scholar’s Challenge. My team’s first activity was Team Debate. We received our debate tree which was a map that told us what rooms to go to. We went through each round getting more and more comfortable with debating. We even made new friends! This was one of my favourite activities in the whole competition.
After the Team Debate we got to eat lunch where there was a variety of cuisine to choose from. We continued with our Collaborative Writing and then the Scholar’s Challenge which was a multiple choice question challenge on 6 different subjects. Those activities were pretty challenging but we managed to complete them confidently. That was the end of day 1!
Then came our second day. We were in a different location this time, in a grand theatre. Our only activity that day was the Scholar’s Bowl. We sat down in our assigned seats and the event began. It was such a fun challenge! We answered analytic questions and multimedia challenges together with our teammates using a clicker! First one to click gets the score! After we completed this event, we moved onto the award results. They separated the medals into different categories. My team ended up going home with 7 medals and a pass to the global rounds!
My friends and I were so grateful to be able to participate in such a prestigious event like this. I would like to thank my Principal, our debate coach, all my teachers and friends who loved and supported our team, and most importantly Stella Maris School who gave us this opportunity in the first place. I will cherish these moments in my heart forever.
