On December 7th and 8th, the Yorba Linda High School speech and debate team attended the Cypress Invitational tournament.

The speech and debate program participated in many events including student congressional debate and the presiding officer position for the event, parliamentary debate, impromptu, extemporaneous speaking, original oratory, and other individual events.

Congressional debate argued on legislation regarding the proper approach to dealing with horse meat, using state of the art technology to genetically modify mosquitos in order to prevent the proliferation of diseases, etc. Parliamentary debate had topics such as whether or not socialism is the best form of economy, whether universal health care should be considered a basic human right, and if an unjust police force does more harm than good.

At the end of the tournament, Chris Mancini(9) placed first novice student congress, Raiyan Kalam(10) placed fourth in novice student congress, Enge You(9) placed fifth in novice student congress. In varsity student congress, Rohita Thammineni(10) placed ninth place, and Rishi Kheni(12) placed as a finalist. Also in varsity student congress, Caitlyn Truong(11) placed first for the competition of Presiding Officers in a student congressional chamber.

For many on the speech and debate program, this is their first time attending an invitational. Rishi Kheni(12) found “the invitational more interesting because there are more rounds and more legislation to be debated. Furthermore [he] likes the format of having preliminary rounds and final rounds to rank the competitors rather than simply accumulated points.”

Elijah Seo(10) thought the tournament was enjoyable “but was somewhat frustrated that the parliamentary debate was split into two flights with spontaneous topics that seemed to be one-sided. Overall, though, the five rounds of debating were a good learning experience, especially considering that there are usually more experienced teams at invitationals.”