Recently we experienced a meaningful debate that also amused us a lot. The topic was whether it is good for people to grow up in adverse circumstances.

In this debate, I learned how to become a debater and trained my logic and critical thinking skills. Logic and critical thinking are the most significant qualities for a professional debater.

For instance, besides the first debater, other speakers have to refute the debater who has just made a speech from the other team. He or she should find the last speaker’s point of view in a long speech and respond logically and rapidly.

In addition, he or she needs to organize his or her speech and make sure their later points can absolutely refute what the last speaker has said.

I, as the first debater of the negative team, was very important because I’m the first speaker in my group. Our view was that it is not good for people to grow up in adverse circumstances. My point of view was that bad conditions are bad for us. Before the competition, I wrote a paragraph about my views.

To make a good statement, I searched for some evidence from the Internet, which helped me become more confident and speak fluently. Being the first debater, I have learned that I need to state my points clearly and concisely to make the opposite debater understand clearly and show the judges our logical thinking instead of speaking a lot and losing the highlights. If I speak a lot, it not only confuses the judges, but also makes my teammates hesitant about what to say next.

What attracted me most was the free talk section of this debate. We could state our points freely, which encouraged us to say more and more.

I felt the enjoyment from this part was that we were truly excited when the opposite team gave incorrect points which gave us chances to refute them. Moreover, the conclusion was very significant because it impressed the judges the most.

Thanks to debate, we have learned critical thinking and experienced an interesting “quarrel” with our classmates.