Experiencing the Tournament of Champions at Yale

After a long and hard working season at the World Scholar’s Cup 2019, ‘A World on the Margins’, we had successfully made it to the Tournament of Champions in Yale from the 8th to the 13th of November after being qualified from the Sydney Global Round. Being able to participate and represent Bangkok Prep in the World Scholar’s Cup event at Yale was indeed a memorable experience for us in which 60 Regional Rounds became 6 Global Rounds and it soon became 1 Tournament of Champions Round.

With 6 different subjects to study (Science, History, Social Studies, Special Area, Literature and Art & Music) and 4 different challenges (Debate, Scholar’s Challenge, Collaborative Writing and the Scholar’s Bowl) to put ourselves up to the challenge, we faced many problems such as having misconceptions of the answer to a specific question – but we eventually overcame them.

The debate was really enjoyable as we competed in 3 rounds with our opponents coming from diverse countries all around the world such as Germany, Vietnam and the UK. One of the topics, for example, in which we had debated against was to resolve whether every country should have a ministry of childhood ran by teenagers, which was by far one of the most unique motions we faced. The Scholar’s Challenge is a multiple choice challenge where you have 75 minutes to fill in 120 questions regarding this year’s theme: ‘A World on the Margins’. In the collaborative writing, we had the privilege of choosing 1 out of the 6 subjects to write an essay on.

Finally, the Scholar’s Bowl… it’s quite similar to the Scholar’s Challenge but the only difference is that you get to answer the questions with your teammates. Overall, each area has its own unique purpose: Debate – which helped build our confidence in terms of Public Speaking with the techniques; Scholar’s Challenge and Scholar’s Bowl – allowed us to apply our knowledge to the real world by linking various topic areas together and Collaborative Writing taught us the importance of communication. In total, we got 5 medals, 2 golds in individual debate and school’s top scholar, and 3 silvers in individual writing and team writing.

We would like to thank the following teachers for their constant support throughout this unforgettable journey: Mrs. Woods, Ms. Cantrill, Ms. Waszczylko, Mrs Veronique and our parents.

Ploytida 8AC & Bhudham 8VP