by Emily Moss
Four members of North’s debate team competed at Manchester-Essex High School the weekend of Nov. 1, with junior Edward Ding winning the award for first-place speaker, according to senior Bill Shen, a captain of the team.
According to Shen, 36 schools from seven states attended the tournament, with Shen and juniors Edward Ding, David Reiss-Mello, and Andrew Sun representing North. A team of Shen and Ding went 5-1, said Shen.
At the tournament, students discussed the topic of whether granting public subsidies to professional sports organizations benefits their local communities—the same topic that they had previously debated at the Bronx tournament, said Shen.
Shen noted that many of the team’s opponents were “very, very good” and that succeeding in the tournament was “a great feeling.”
He added that in appointing winners, the judges totaled the scores that each debater had received during the tournament, though each student’s highest and lowest scores were excluded from the total “to prevent overly-generous or mean judges” from influencing the results.
According to Shen, ties were determined using the debaters’ total points during the competition, their middle two scores, and their opponents’ average scores.
Shen also noted that the team plans to attend local tournaments in Lexington and Lincoln-Sudbury on Saturday, Nov. 22 and Saturday, Dec. 13. In January, they will compete in larger tournaments at South, Lexington, and Columbia University.