QUESTIONS TRUE FALSE

1. Leader of Opposition must always challenge the background delivered by Prime

Minister
2. Negative team must always bring counter proposal
3. The definition provided by Prime Minister must always be followed by the rest
of whole speakers
4. An argument is valid and acceptable as long as the main idea is signposted
5. Closing teams must engage with the debate by delivering essential extensions
and more elaborated cases
6. Closing teams can debate with a whole new set-up and definition of the motion
7. Rebuttal is necessary to engage with opponent’s cases
8. Rebuttal is delivered by negating the opponent’s cases and arguments
9. Adjudicators can assess (and give credit or penalty) whether the debate set-up
is relevant with spirit of the motion
10. Contributive argument is to answer problems in the motion
11. Arguments must defend team’s own stance
12. Signposting-only argument can be credited when it sounds intuitively
contributive and right
13. Whips are allowed to bring new materials as responses against opponent’s case
14. Whips are allowed to bring new materials to strengthen team’s own stance
15. Characterization of principals and stakeholders is pivotal to answer what the
debate is about
16. Better analysis of matter could be counted as extension for closing team
17. The team that bring hard case/ stance will always get better point than the
team that bring soft case/ stance
18. I should not mark a speaker down just because they do not offer Points of
Information.
19. I should mark teams down for making arguments that are inherently
contradictory, even when this is not pointed out by the other team.
20. Adjudicators should use their own specialized knowledge of a topic to
determine who should win a disputed issue

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE SECTION

1. Please explain what International Court of Crime (ICC) is. What is their main function and how
does it different with International court of justice (ICJ). And if possible, mention some of
previous conflict involving ICC as the part of resolution.
2. Please explain the motive behind The Spratly’s island dispute. And if possible, mention the
international law is at stake.
3. Please explain the The Syrian Civil War. What is the motive behind the clash?
4. Please explain the difference amongst the first wave, second wave and third wave feminism?
To be a good adjudicator, someone must be able to assess a debate and give constructive to the
debaters. In this section, you will have to construct a background, an argument and a rebuttal, as
well as assessing a debate and an argument based on the problems below.
A. Constructing a good background, an argument and rebuttal.

1. Please construct a background for this motion: “THBT Students should be held legally
responsible for bullying in school.”
2. As the opposition team of the house, please make an argument against this motion: “TH
Regrets Tax Amnesty.”
3. The motion you are debating is “THW put media literacy (including but not limited to: hoax
detection, fact checking, differentiating media company, etc.) in school curriculum”. Your
opponent delivered this argument:

“While there used to only be a handful of reliable newspapers and outlets, today there is so
much more. The Internet is filled with citizen journalists and personal blogs, all filled with
opinion pieces. Recognizing fact and opinion is a major part of fostering an educated
population. Students need an introduction to methods for judging the credibility of different
media and evaluating what they are reading. Most importantly, they need sustained access to
trained teachers, librarians, and other professionals, perhaps even journalists themselves, who
know how to engage them in critical conversations about what they are consuming and
creating.
Media literacy will help students to develop an informed and critical understanding of the
nature of mass media, the techniques used by them, and the impact of these techniques. More
specifically, it is education that aims to increase the students’ understanding and enjoyment
of how the-media work, how they produce meaning, how they are organized, and how they
construct reality. Media literacy also aims to provide students with the ability to create media
products.
It cannot be sufficiently delivered only in a seminar or in a week-long campaign. The most
effective way to realize effective media literacy education is to incorporate it into the national
education curriculum. It has to be given a place in nearly every course and subject. For
example in social science, in history classes, students can look at how their views of history
and historical events have been shaped by media. Studying films, newspapers and even their
own textbooks can help students see how the nature of each medium shapes how history is
told. In Geography and World Issues classes, students can analyze how news coverage
influences how we view different parts of the world – and the people who live there. Such
step would enable them, even from a very young age, to become fully literate in the digital
age.
Learning about media literacy will require a long process, thus, we believe that putting media
literacy in school curriculum is the most effective way to educate these children about media.”
 As the Opposition side of House, how are you going to refute that argument? Write you
rebuttal!

B. Assessing arguments.

Please assess these arguments and give your constructive on how this arguments should be
developed to improve its quality!

1. Motion: This house would give automatically grant refugees citizenship; if the conflict they
are escaping from continues for an equal amount of time it takes for a person to acquire
citizenship in the sheltering nation.

Government

Refugee’s right to a good quality of life

“Refugees are people fleeing from their country of origin to escape persecution merely
because they belong to certain group of religion, nationality, membership of a particular social
group or political opinion. Usually these people come from conflict area, in which the gravity
and seriousness of the conflict has reached a high level of intensity. These people, through
whatever way available to them, seek asylum from another country to save their lives.
Respecting their right to live, international community agree that destination state shall not
return those people to their country of origin where their lives are at stake. However, the right
to live comes together with the right to have a good quality of life. A good quality of life can
never be achieved for as long as their status as refugee is uncertain. Prolonged conflict can
take years to decades to end, which means that the possibility that they can return to their
home country as soon as possible is very low. These people, having low to no hope to return
to their country mostly apply for a citizenship to a promising foreign country despite the fact
that citizenship application is complicated and usually take years to be granted. We believe
that by giving them automatically grant refugees citizenship we will be able to make sure that
they will be having a good quality of life.”

2. Motion: THW cap the number of years a person can own land.

Government

Government’s Justification to cap the number of years a person can own land.

“Land ownership has never been an absolute ownership. In fact, the strongest land ownership
still gives room for public usage, allowing the Government to take over the ownership with
certain compensation. The concept of land ownership is dynamic, changing overtime to meet
 the need of society. It is Government’s authority and obligation to design a regulation of land
ownership to answer the social problem. Nowadays, there is significantly growing number of
homeless people. It is supposed to be the Government’s obligation to make sure that everyone
living in their territory can afford an affordable adequate housing. Land crisis has been one of
the obstacle that our government has to solve in order to be able to fulfill the citizens’ right to
adequate housing. That is why we are going to cap the number of years a person can own a
land.”

C. Assessing contribution in a debate.

1. Motion: THBT International Monetary Fund (IMF) is Better off with One State One Vote
System Instead of Sharing Voting System

Government

Background: IMF is one of UN council that works in monetary issue. Its main goal is to help
countries facing financial crisis. The members of IMF are categorized into groups according
to their own financial ability (developed, developing, and least developed countries); they will
have to pay an amount of money every year which is different from one group to another.
When IMF is going to take a decision, the sharing voting mechanism takes place; it is a voting
system that each country has different percentage of voice according their contribution.
Because the developed countries pay more money than other groups, they have bigger
percentage of voice compared to other groups.

Argument

The sharing voting system is unfair since the developing and least developed countries don’t
have the same starting point.

Mostly the developing and least developed countries are new countries created after World
War II. These countries are still young and their economic situation often times are still poor
or unstable. Many of their citizens are still in poverty. Mostly their biggest income is from
foreign investment, raw material export, and tourism, and yet it is not enough to be as good
as the developed countries. Their educational level, and the development of science and
technology are still poor as well, no wonder that it’s still difficult for them to establish many
industries, companies and factories like the developed nations. So it is just logical if their
economic power is not as strong as the developed nations. Of course this situation makes them
unable to give much financial contribution in IMF. However, this doesn’t mean they are less
contributive than developed countries because the total payment in the end is proportional to
each country’s income. Fairness doesn’t mean equal in number, but proportional according to
ability. If these developing and least developed countries contribute to IMF as best as their
 can, but they are treated as if they are less important than developed countries in term of voice
for voting, we believe it is an unfairness.

Opposition

Developed countries have a right to be given more significant voices in voting to make a
decision in IMF because the money used in IMF is mostly their money, and thus it is fair.

We know that the money paid by developed nations to IMF comes from the national income
of each country. Such income mostly is from citizens’ tax. The government of a developed
nations, although they have to care about the prosperity of humans in other countries, but
mainly they must be responsible toward their own citizens first, because it is their money that
the government uses. It is just logical if they get bigger and more significant voice in voting
to decide on how or where their money is going to be used, whether they would allow
developing country and least developed country to use that money to prosper themselves. The
tax is from citizen and that’s why government cannot let their money to go to waste when it’s
going to be used by IMF. By having bigger percentage in voting, they can make sure their
responsibility toward their own citizen in using the money is met with their own citizens’
interest. The government will have the capability to make sure that they will get that money
back to be distributed to their citizens, for the interest of their own country.

Is the background delivered by government good enough in depicting the problems?

Why?

According to the argument, which team do you think gives better contribution to answer
the motion? Why? How is the less contributive team supposed to make the argument
better?

2. THW Prohibit Political Campaign and Support in Social Media

Opening Opposition

Freedom of Speech
Prohibiting political campaign and support in social media is going to violate the freedom of
speech. People use social media to deliver their opinion, their perspectives and aspiration.
People are supposed to be free to deliver their opinion. We must respect their freedom of
speech because it is human right. Human right is important part of one’s life. If the human
right is not respected and upheld, it’s going to make the people live uncomfortably and
unhappy.
If people’s freedom speech is violated, which is also part of human right, it may make people
distrust government. People can also protest by joining rally against government. This can
cause instability in political situation. We believe it is dangerous.
Moreover, it is government obligation to protect human right and people’s need which is
freedom of speech. We see that government is chosen by people and that’s why there is social
construct. If government violates the social construct, government fails to fulfill their job
mandated by society. Not to mention, in democratic country, government is supposed to listen
to what society demands because the idea of democracy is from people, by people, for people,
government is not an tyrant that can shut people’s voices. That’s why we believe political
campaign and support in social media is justified and must not be prohibited.

Closing Opposition

Social Media is one of a platform/medium to convey our opinions

The idea of social media is it is a tool that can ease us to socialize, communicate and interact
with people even though we live apart far away. Moreover, we must understand that the
purpose of communication and socialization is to influence each other by delivering or
exchanging information so that both parties can reach understanding and same interest. Social
media itself is just one out of so many ways to reach this purpose of communication and
socialization.

Now take a look at what political campaign and support are about. They are about influencing
other people to be on your side, to accept your interest and thus would follow it. Not to
mention supporting sometimes is just means of expression and to cheer the ones we support.
The idea of political campaign and support is exactly in line with the purpose of
communication and socialization. And we must understand as well that communication is just
human nature and need, the more people receive our message, the more people understand
and accept our interest and goal, the better we will feel the psychological satisfaction from
that kind of nature and need. That’s why prohibiting political campaign and support in social
media is just justifiable.

Nevertheless, political campaign and support is not always in the form of negative manner
that condescending other people or parties. Many times it can be delivered in meaningful and
inspiring ways. Sometimes the campaign includes or promotes the idea of compassion and
harmony. It shows to us that the purpose of communication is in fact good.

According to the argument, which team do you think gives better contribution to answer
the motion? Why? What is the mistakes of the less contributive team? How is the less
contributive team supposed to make the argument better?