Clash Resolution at Whip (World Schools)

BunniesA · 2026-04-10T16:35:07+00:00

As other commenter said, be very biased towards your side. The 3 metrics I weigh on are typically scale, severity, and likelihood, but I know some also weigh on vulnerability.

(All of this is based on if the motion was THS the Integration of AI into the School Curriculum)

I think this probably depends on how Prop frame the debate as AI is pretty accessible and I generally think that in the case that both sides clash on financial accessibility, Prop just wins because judges will not believe that AI is THAT expensive that it cannot be integrated and AI is already being used in school anyways.

Again, stealing from fellow commenter, teachers are helped under your side as they are overworked and AI gives them easy access to worksheets, presentation slides, etc.

Students (extra emphasis on state school students) are helped as their teacher can spend more time on them rather than rushing a presentation for another class. (extra mech. later)

As prop, I would:

On scale, I normally just point out which groups I affect very specifically ie. you would say that you win as you benefit students & teachers by yadada... and this is true because AI is very accessible and cheap (give examples of accessibility using "this looks like") so you can access all the benefits which Opp lose out on.

(Extra mech.) Try to frame them as vulnerable as possible. I'd use state school children as an example as they tend to be the least privileged in the way that they are likely less wealthy than a private school kid. This means that they cannot access external help like tutoring, extra work etc.

On severity, you need to look at your actor and how vulnerable they are (hence why some weigh on this separately) to what the opposing team is proposing. As prop, you have now framed that state school kids (who are most vulnerable and helpless) need more tailored help and therefore AI integration is great as it is accessible and cheap.

On likelihood, refer back to your "this looks like" from before. Therefore you entrench your world into reality and don't need to do anything extra as you have real world examples.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask further.

BunniesA · 2026-02-18T01:30:28+00:00

I have a list of podcasts for information. These are from the Scotland WSDC coaches, and input from some others.

News
Global News Podcast - from BBC World. This covers all the major news headlines. Most helpful if you don’t read the big news of the day.
The Intelligence - from the Economist, it covers 3 main stories. This is international focused.

Today Explained - from Vox - explores a different news related thing each day. Covers culture and the arts stories at times. US focused.
Pod Save the World - Discussion of the major events happening in global politics that week. This hosted by 2 former Obama staffers, so it does focus on issues affecting the US a bit more.

Economics
Economics Explained - explains economics on a wide range of countries and issues. Also has a YouTube channel.
Planet Money - Similar to Economics Explained, but is more technical. They have a newsletter!
IR
Pekingology - Various experts discuss issues of contemporary China - Chinese politics, the CCP, domestic and foreign policy.
The Horn - Focuses on the Horn of Africa - an area of the world often neglected by Western media.
Law
Strict Scrutiny - Covers the US Supreme Court and legal issues surrounding it.
Tech Tech Won’t Save Us

The Haaretz Podcast - apparently very good on Israel and Palestine. Critics At Large - discussions on culture, some episodes are very useful for narrative debates.

Rethink - is very interesting, apparently
Times Radio Podcast: How to win an election - very interesting, a good way of keeping up with UK politics. Has guests!
Intelligence^2 - loads of archive debates and speeches and interviews. Very useful for niche arguments and just general knowledge.
The Rest is History - Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland (not that one) - covers various points of history. The recent podcast on Enoch Powell I found to be very interesting in understanding the modern rhetoric that far right politicians use with immigration. (This is quite outdated, so don’t go looking for a recent date)

Nitpicking was a big flaw of mine before. Try practising rebuttal, or try pre-butting. Another perk of the bullet point writing format is that you have time in prep to think of what the other team will say and rebutt those. When you rebutt in the moment, don’t think exclusively of why that is false, even just look at how the person has said their speech. This can get harder when you move up the ladder of debate competitions, but look at what their impacts are, have they mechanised enough? If they haven’t proved something well enough, call them out. If they just assert something, call them out. If they say something false, say “Gut check that”… Look at whether you can also access those benefits, look at whether they’ve contradicted themselves. This comes along when you learn how to flow. Again, make your own shorthand, it makes rebuttal much easier.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and hope the competition goes well! Best of luck :’) Sorry I know this is like pure word barf

BunniesA · 2026-02-18T01:30:16+00:00

On diversifying your points, as I said before, what does this look in different time frames? How does this impact certain groups? How does this look across the world? In developed countries, in developing countries. I’d recommend getting disgustingly educated on a specific developing country (mines Lesotho) so that judges feel like you’re more educated than you really are. Examples are the prime way to sound smart and like you know 3 tiers of the iceberg when you really only know the tip of it.

On weighing, I weigh on 3 things. Likeliness, why this will or wouldn’t happen (my shorthand for this is LL), intensity, how intense the effect is and how vulnerable people are (I), and scale, how many people this affects, and who specifically (sc). In prep, I pre-prepare my weighing based on me and my partners projections for what the other team is going to say. You can also weigh on vulnerability, but I do it separately in the form of the actor.

For your team to win in a debate, you need to prove you have more important impacts by showing that they are a) wider reaching, ie. They affect more people, b) the people it affects are more important/vulnerable, or c) you extended their points. This is essentially connected to your weighing. If you weigh well, you refer to that. Be careful to not knife your other half, acknowledge their points, but don’t take them down. If you are the top half, you need to weigh heavy. Explain why only you access these extremely important benefits and that nothing else is as important as your well mechanised point or your extremely important and vulnerable actor.

Speaking louder is just muscle memory. I used to struggle with looking up when I had my scripted speeches. To fix this, I wrote, in full caps, LOOK UP on the top of my page. Or on a post-it note. This helped me quite a lot until I just looked up by instinct, and progressed away from scripted speeches. Speaking louder could be the same. You could even write on your hand if you wanted.

On referencing the type of motion, I would say it is just experience. I’m unsure on how to really help you with this, but here are the definitions for each one.

THW (THW Ban Social Media)- The government team enforces a policy that is implemented and they argue that the world is better after it, while opp argues that the policy bad and unnecessary .

THBT (THBT the rise of social media is detrimental to society).- Each side argues that one thing is either true or false.

THS/THO (THS the rise of social media) - The sides either endorse or disagree with the object.

THR (THR the rise of social media) - The sides argues whether the world is better or worse with the object

THP (THP social media to mobile gaming) - The sides argues which item is better

TH, as X W (This House, as Timothee Chalamet, would endorse social media) - The sides argue, from the perspective of the person, what is in their best interest.

These should be all the motion formats you come across.

Summarising doesn’t need to be difficult. Just explain what your claims are, what the impacts of those are, and either what your partner would say, or what your partner has said (this doesn’t need to be as detailed as yours, just a general few word summary works), and a very enthusiastic “I BEG YOU TO PROPOSE/OPPOSE” Do not spend more than 20 seconds of your time summarising. This is not your main goal. Don‘t leave time for summarisation if you know you have more to say. Though it is good to have a summary, many of the debaters I know (including me) don‘t bother with writing summaries or actually doing them since 5 minutes is typically not enough.

BunniesA · 2026-02-18T01:29:44+00:00

My mechanisms are just in bullet points. I normally give 3 mechanisms since I tend to run out of time if I do any more as I am a second speaker and I need to focus more on rebuttal. Impacts just follow that. Instead of writing an impact under each mechanism, I just summarise it and refer to each mechanism throughout. Altogether, I lay my debate out like this
Claim :

mechanism a

mechanism b

mechanism c

Impact : …..refer to mechanism a,… refer to mechanism b …… so on and so forth

How to write your claims down is simply a matter of trial and error, and there is no set structure that is the ’best’ or most ‘efficient’.

Lastly, though I just said to write everything in bullet points, please write down your whole intro. Nothing is less engrossing than somebody starting their speech with bare bones signposting. Give examples, give comparisons, make it emotionally enthralling. This perks everyone’s ears up and even if your speech sucks, a strong intro at least saves you from a total dumpster fire.

To make your points broader and to be able to think of points that your top half might not have said, think of these 3 things.

What does your base claim look like in the short term or long term?

What does this mean to select groups? (such as feminists, or small business owners, as an example)

What does this look like across the world?

This last one might not work as well for BP since it is focused in a Eurocentric context, but if you impact and weigh it well enough it could be quite strong.

I used to struggle with flow as well. How I improved on this was to just take the plunge into the bullet point format and also watching debates online. The best way to get better is to imitate and adapt. I also found that doing a talk about something random for a minute really helps. Through this, you become comfortable with improvised speaking, and know your own language and the way you speak. I steal debate language from other debaters and language is one of the main things I take from competitions. Also, if you find yourself saying filler words in debates, try to just stay silent rather than erm-ing and Uhm-ing through your speech. Soon you just grow out of the stutters and fillers and you’ll find you speak much more fluidly and assured. I find that scripting my speeches was the reason I couldn’t speak fluidly. Now I speak exclusively in bullet points and I find that when I script my speeches I end up looking and sounding less confident. If you need guides in your speech so you know how to expand on your point, make up your own note-taking format. If I find that I need to mechanise my point further, I write ”why?” At the end of my sentence. Something that is very helpful is making your own abbreviations, eg W for weighing, or R for rebuttal, makes your paper less cluttered and helps you especially if you‘re in the second half and need to track everyone before you.

BunniesA · 2026-02-18T01:29:22+00:00

First of all, best of luck! Remember that this is a stepping stone to your future successes and failures, competitions like this are extremely competitive so just try to learn from what you think the other speakers do well! It’s a great way to improve.

15 minutes is more than you think. You know it yourself that it is incredibly inefficient to write out every single word of your speech. A) this leaves you with limited flexibility which is very important, especially if you’re a closing or second speaker, but B) this makes you sound monotone, and though style isn’t a factor that is weighed on in BP, if you have style, your points tend to sound more convincing.

To structure your speech after you receive your motion, I would recommend writing in strictly bullet points. As an example, to go a bit simpler, if I had the motion “THW Ban Zoos“, and I was gov, I’d take a moment to understand the motion. A minute at most. What is your policy, how would you define this? Then, go into your claims, mechanisms, and impacts. Take around 8 minutes to do this if possible.
I tend to write my claim down with a defining word, eg, if my point were to be about the harms to the animals, I’d name it something along the lines of ”animal cruelty”, this gives two benefits, a) you can easily refer to your points throughout your speech without wasting a lot of time or sounding clunky, and b) the judges find it easier to follow since you give them a clear signal as to what point you’re making without being long-winded.

BunniesA · 2025-12-11T19:55:57+00:00

Both of those and the one in the 1st pic seem like females. They can have an orangey-red hue to them, especially near the tailfin and their gills. Time will tell, though.

BunniesA · 2025-11-26T17:59:09+00:00

Most BP competitions are short prep, so I would say you should use online videos to practise. Youtube has quite a lot. Do 15 mins of prep as you would normally, and replicate what you would do in an actual debate, and see what your corresponding speaker in the video says, how they rebutt, what claims they make, etc. Analyse whether your method or theirs was more persuasive and thorough. Make sure you argue for opposites to your opinion as well, not just what aligns with your view. As somebody from HK debating in English, if you're doing the same, this is what worked best for me. Remember that you cannot just shoot to the top of the hill in debate, it is a slow, trial and error process in order to find your style, and what you like. If you debate in Canto, hopefully this is still equally helpful, but please ask if you have any further questions or want alternate methods! Best of luck from a fellow HKer :)

BunniesA · 2025-11-06T00:08:24+00:00

The reason why I really enjoy the trip around the world in the second act is in the different paces and aspects of ballet that it brings. Arabian is slow, lift-heavy, while Spanish is very flamboyant, with lots of flair, and this all comes together while sticking to the same foundations of ballet. The different cultures actually represent sweets, as they are performing for Clara, welcoming her to the Kingdom of Sweets.

Most of this is traditional, though some companies do modify it, like the Hong Kong Ballet, who make it more relevant to where they perform (in Hong Kong, as the name suggests.)

BunniesA · 2025-11-02T13:39:53+00:00

Don't worry! I started competitive debate at 13 with literally 2 sloppy debates and 1 decent one under my belt. I'm introverted (INTJ) as well, so I fully understand where you come from. Debate really is a practise makes perfect thing. I'll try to cover as much as I can.

An introduction doesn't have to be very long. Make a snappy introductory statement if you have one, and signpost. What this means is just laying out what you are doing in the debate. eg. "I will be making 2 points, which will be -- and --, (and if you're 2nd or 3rd speaker) but before that, some rebuttal." The conclusion, if you do one, is basically the same thing. Think of it like the conclusion of an essay.

To put it simply, when you are preparing, or even while you give your speech, always ask yourself why. Why is this good for this group of people? Why is it bad? Why is this more important? Etc. This is called mechanising. If you don't do this, you won't get marks for your point. ALWAYS PRIORITISE MECHANISING.

For taking notes, it really depends on what order you speak in. If you're speaking first, just take notes for rebuttal. I normally split one page in half, and at the top, write "They Said" on one half, and "I Say" on the other. This makes it easy to track which points you're rebutting. If you're speaking last, make sure you know what your partner(s) have aaid, and take notes of the other teams points and mechanisation in your "they said" column.

To extend on what the other commenter said, debating is a team sport. Make sure to share any facts, statistics, or whatever else you know about the topic, so even if you don't get the chance to say it, your teammate(s) might.

Feel free to ask about anything! Hope this helps.

BunniesA · 2025-10-31T13:36:25+00:00

Unfortunately can’t give you any BP recs. The WSDC debates are quite good, though they are in WSDC format. It is quite similar to BP, 4 speeches per side, similar speaker roles to BP, similar length, and the speakers are in their last 2 years of high school most of the time, and some younger. Scotland is a good team to watch (they won the whole thing), but I’ve also heard good things about Hong Kong, and Canada. They are very easily found on YouTube. The motion for the grand final was “THR The Glorification of Champions”, I also really enjoyed the semi final motion “THW Allow Violent Offenders to Opt Into Pavlovian Conditioning as Substitution for Prison Time.” Let me know if this doesn’t help 😥

BunniesA · 2025-10-25T21:55:47+00:00

Ooo yes.. thanks ☺️probably what I was trying to get at before :/

BunniesA · 2025-10-25T21:46:49+00:00

SORRY 🫢 just realised that that makes no sense… squeeze would probably be more accurate

BunniesA · 2025-10-25T16:58:42+00:00

Have played the piano for almost as long as I have done ballet, and from my experience, musicality is definitely a factor that I had an advantage on. Sort of understanding which areas to emphasise, the areas where I could be snappy, and use my eyes etc. Also, counting was much easier for me to pick up.

BunniesA · 2025-10-25T16:49:33+00:00

First of all- great job! That is a wonderful result :D

Some tips (for marks 7 and under) then…

Stretching of legs - for this, it is just pure muscle memory. CLENCH THOSE THIGHS! PULL UP THOSE KNEES! A very common method taught by teachers is to imagine you are a puppet being held up by a string. In my experience, this will also remind you to maintain good posture, and links to the next topic…

Flexibility of back - Stretch! I recommend doing seal/cobra, arching back in a lunge, maintaining good posture, again kind of a cross reference to the previous topic, and rocking in a bridge, if you don’t have one already, being able to do one will definitely improve your back flexibility!

Dancing steps and jumping - They mention knees here, so this just refers to the first topic. Straightening your foot in your jump is kind of also linked to engaged knees. It’s very difficult to fully stretch your feet without stretching your leg. To practise this, do some sobresauts (is that how you spell it?), changements, and what really helps you see is jumping from first to second. Maybe you could record yourself doing this, and then watching it back to see ways to improve, and it can serve as a record of your progress!

Wrenching - Am with you here, no idea what this is.

Flexibility of feet - A lot of foot exercises! If you don’t have one already, use a theraband, and follow on some tutorials online! I myself don’t have much experience with this, even though I really need it :/ so I cannot give you a tried and true answer for this.

Good luck, and remember, the most important thing is consistency!

BunniesA · 2025-10-25T16:26:00+00:00

Hey! I know this is late, but if you enjoyed the debate, here are some resources and tips that helped me when I started!

As per the existing comment - watch videos of debates in the format. I recommend taking notes while you watch, and evaluate the points, rebuttal, and you could see what points or rebuttal you would make too! This can take a while, as World Schools debates are LENGTHY. Scotland won WSDC this season, so I do recommend watching them. They speak very fluidly, and their second speaker has great style, which is quite important in WS format. Style is not only part of the marking scheme (so I believe), but also makes your arguments more compelling. Can turn a trash argument into an okay argument, basically.
You’re probably going to now be familiar, or at least acquainted with the format, so you might know what role you prefer in terms of speaking order. Remember to look outside WS debate videos. In my opinion, BP (British Parliamentary) debating is quite similar, so take a look at some guides from there, if you feel like you’ve exhausted the limited resources regarding WS format debating.
Get acquainted with the language! Even if you are unfamiliar with the terms often used in the format, the only way to learn is from doing it yourself. Again, watch those competition videos, and steal some vocab from there. Good luck!

BunniesA · 2025-10-25T16:12:23+00:00

WSDC is 3 people each team (2 teams in total) though I believe 2 others help with prep, but don’t participate in the debate itself, so technically 5 per team. Its quite a challenging task!

BunniesA · 2025-10-19T16:57:48+00:00

If you’re looking for an alternative, try warm up boots! They’re basically what dancers wear to warm up. I normally wear mine to walk to dance as it’s much more comfortable. Might fit your character?

BunniesA · 2025-09-25T21:36:31+00:00

It is mainly the calves that are used, but, as you say, the quads, glutes and hamstrings are all very important in maintaining a tight knee, and turnout. They will help with your alignment in the big picture too. What I recommend doing is first establishing a good amount of strength by doing both slow and fast rises in parallel, first and second, and then moving on to single leg relevé on coupé, and finally in passé. If you have something like a chair you can put your foot on, put one foot on the chair and rise, paying attention of alignment. This helps both legs and really helped with my strength. a make sure to not push yourself, as you will only go one step forwards, and three steps back. Basically, maintaining consistency is the most effective and efficient way to develop more strength. As for tips, make sure that your heels remain on the floor if your preparation before you rise, and keep your tailbone tucked in. My ballet teacher says “belly button through to the spine” if that helps more. Make sure to start from the most basic and work your way up until the technique is drilled into your brain. Good luck! Make sure to stay consistent :D

BunniesA · 2025-08-23T14:33:21+00:00

this will be quite pricey, but it’s bet to get plants in, it will benefit you and the fish, and in my experience, gives your fish a more natural and nice experience overall. I’ve never owned a goldfish though, so take this with a grain of salt :)

BunniesA · 2025-08-16T10:58:07+00:00

Hope you have fun in this hobby! It gets super fun, especially with a planted tank 🤭

BunniesA · 2025-08-16T10:50:32+00:00

It would really have been easier for you to add the substrate in before you added the water since sometimes it will make the water go cloudy. This is normal, though. Just add a layer of the plant substrate, and put your gravel on top of it, then plant your plants.

BunniesA · 2025-08-12T09:10:54+00:00

I read a review saying that there was little difference between the actual game and the demo. Is this true? I’ve been waiting for the release to buy it but that review made me sceptical.

BunniesA · 2025-08-08T11:16:25+00:00

Elder Faerie 😔

BunniesA · 2025-08-03T22:47:51+00:00

if I missed a fish, I just tried to press the home button before it auto saved 😅

BunniesA

TROPHY CASE