After a year of practice and tournaments, the debate teams held varsity tryouts for the upcoming year during the last week of April at room A118.

Next year, junior Scout Hayes, who was a varsity judge last year, will be a debater, and freshmen Jessie Kim, Yusra Qureshi, and Marielle Santos are also joining the team. Juniors Teresa Hong, Anthony Kim, Corey Giannakis, Joyce Kim, Lauren Lee, and Sarah Chae are the new varsity judges.

For the tryouts, debaters could sign up for a time slot, and then they were given a random plan that one of the varsity members had set up for the previous season. As the role of the negative team, they would then have to argue against the plans given to them.

Freshman Jessie Kim said that the tryout process was “just simulating a typical debate.”

Those that were trying out for the judge position had to finish a packet with questions. The questions were centered on procedure during a debate.

Although junior Maxwell Schenkel was not part of the tryout process this year because he is already on the varsity team, he said that “for the tryout process you just have to know all the basic parts of the debate itself.”

Schenkel said that the five pillars of debate, the basics of creating a plan, and the basics of another person’s plan are all essential for the tryout process.

According to junior Jane Kim, the five pillars include topicality, or if it meets the resolve. This year’s resolve was centered around increasing economic and diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. It also includes inherency, or if it proves a problem. Feasibility addresses if the plan is able to be carried out. Fundability explains where the money is coming from and if it is able to be funded. Solvency is when the problem is able to be solved.

Schenkel said that even if you don’t exactly know someone else’s plan, you have “to know all the basics and all the little details that someone might come across during the tryouts.”

Jessie Kim is looking forward to the competitions and “exposure to people that are more experienced at debate, so [that she] can grow in [her] debate skills.”

In addition, the varsity team is in the process of trying to reassign their partners. They do this by basing the teams on how well the partners work together and personalities. Schenkel said, “The assigned partners for next year’s teams are very important because [they are] going to try to build the strongest teams possible in order to get the most amount of wins.”