SEVECEN Sayı: 28 - 2019

27 Dora ASLAN The 2018 round of the World Scholar’s Cup, An Entangled World, was hosted at our school, Izmir SEV this year. The whole tournament was a splendid experience. As a team, we won a total of 34 medals and 4 cups. Individually, I got 13 medals and 1 cup. It was such an astonishing event. My friends and I were so happy that we started crying tears of joy! The tournament took place over two days. During those two days, we had the chance to take part in The Scholar’s Challenge, write spectacular essays for Collaborative Writing, debate our hearts out in the Team Debates, and combine knowledge and guessing skills in the Scholar’s Bowl. This experience taught me to never give up. I learned that love is really an onion, which was our writing subject. I learned that alpacas can be your friend who supports you morally. Also, I learned that unexpected surprises and opportunities might come to you, even when you least expect it or predict them to happen. In our club hours, we learned information about the science of memory, human relationships, and black markets. Also, we had many debates which prepared us for the tournament. We worked so hard and did our best! I love WSC. It helped me to become a better debater, a better person, and a better teammate. The feeling you get when you see young scholars like you is unique. I encourage everyone to join the World Scholar’s Cup. You definitely won’t regret it. Beril KOÇ I joined the World Scholar’s Cup this year. At the beginning of this year I didn’t know anything about this club but I have now learned so much. Most importantly I learned how to debate in this club. I started to debate last year when I was 10 years old, but this year I debated every week. I loved it because it’s improved our English and also it was fun. Recently we attended a WSC tournament. First, I was so excited and nervous, but that feeling quickly went away. At the tournament we had so many things to do. First, we debated with other schools. We all did 3 debates. My team won only 1 of them. I am still proud of my team and myself because in these 3 debates our performance was good. Next, we had the writing part where all my team members chose 1 topic and they wrote about it collaboratively. Our group was so good at writing. Then we had a scholar’s challenge which was so hard. There were 120 questions and we had only 90 minutes. The next day was better because they gave each of us an alpaca. I received a pink alpaca. After I got my alpaca it was time for the award ceremony. I was so nervous. I just wanted to get a medal and you know what, my dream came true. I got a gold medal as an individual debater. I was so proud of myself. In addition to that, I received 3 silvers from other categories. Then in the end they announced the groups that qualified for the global round. We qualified and that was really the best part of the two day-event. I can’t wait to go to the globals. Ada SABANCI I think the WSC is the best club I’ve ever been in. On the first day of the tournament, we had so much excitement and on the second day we had even more fun. It was unbelievable. When they first gave me my very own alpaca, I was so excited because I love alpacas. When they gave me my medals, I was very proud of myself and of who I am. Arhan DEMİREL If you asked me what WSC means to me, I would say it is a great experience as it allows you to improve your English in a natural way. Debating, researching, and discussing different topics allowed us to understand and think about brand-new topics. Also, it taught me how important group work is in debate and competitions, as we had to work well with each other to win.