Rysa Tahilramani
November 20th, 2021
During the September 28-29 weekend, the HKIS Forensics team participated in the Hong Kong Senior Schools Debating Championship (SDC), going against tough competition from various other schools in HK. It was a competition filled with passionate debate and exhibited public speaking skills.
Topics in debate spanned from current events like tensions between the US and Iran after recent nuclear developments to abstract topics about family and art symbolism.
HKIS performed outstandingly in this tournament, with both teams breaking to quarterfinals. The HKIS A team broke to grand finals and came second overall, after facing intense competition and came a very close second. Daniel Sheremeta (12) also won the best speaker award.
The team featured a variety of students from different grades, from sophomores to seniors. “It was a really eye-opening tournament for me,” explained Navia Zhang (10). As her third tournament in her Forensics career, “there was such a high level of competition, and I gained a lot of skills from it.”
The preparation the team did definitely helped them achieve this level of success. For two weeks, they stayed after school nearly every day to prep for their case, to try debating impromptu motions and so on. The teams practiced every day from 3 pm to 7pm the week before. The Saturday before the quarterfinals, they even stayed until 10pm to go over their points again.
“It was such a satisfying experience because we could see all of our tireless work finally pay off,” said Katelyn Liu (11).
Words of advice for Forensics tournament include prepping your case well, preparing for rebuttals and maintaining a good attitude in the face of steep competition.
“Forensics is a great club to join. There’s a variety of different public speaking activities to do,” said Navia. “Come join debate, because that’s the best one!”
There’s no doubt that the Forensics team performed excellently in the face of tough competition and in the field of rigorous and competitive public speaking.
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