At 3:00 p.m. on December 11, 2019, the school selection competition of the 2019 Foreign Studies Institute - Guocai Cup National College Students' English Debate Competition was held as scheduled. After the first round of selection in the form of video speech, the final 24 contestants entered the second round of final: BP English debate.
The 24 contestants formed teams by drawing lots and decided their respective debating roles. The final round was divided into 3 games, with 8 players in each game, divided into 4 teams (Upper House, Upper House, Lower House and Lower House), which were competing against each other. The debate questions for each game were randomly generated, and the debate started after 15 minutes of preparation. Prof. Li Huadong and Ms. Liu Huidan from the School of Foreign Languages were invited to be the judges of this school selection competition, and each team and each debater were graded in detail.
The first debate topic: This House believes that corporal punishment of children should be justified. This House believes that corporal punishment of children should be justified. The opposing side argued that corporal punishment is difficult to control and can easily harm children's physical and mental health, and can easily turn into violence, citing other punishments that can make children distinguish between right and wrong, such as labor and social experience. Both sides were evenly matched and the debate was very lively.
In the second debate, This House would ban cosmetic surgeries that do not have medical necessity. The first side argued that cosmetic surgery for beauty is extremely harmful to the body and can even lead to death. It is also the case that more and more people are choosing cosmetic surgery so that they become more and more similar to each other and lose their unique beauty. At the same time, the pro side also points out that there are other healthier and longer-term ways to become beautiful, such as living a fuller life, increasing self-confidence, cultivating the body, and so on. The opposing side refuted these arguments one by one: cosmetic surgery is usually microcosmetic surgery, and the current technology has greatly reduced the risk; cosmetic surgery is necessary for some people's careers, such as models; cosmetic surgery can also increase the income of hospitals, thus promoting economic development, and cannot be banned across the board; everyone has the freedom to choose whether to have cosmetic surgery or not, and it is not simple to Everyone has the freedom to choose whether or not to have plastic surgery, so there is no need to simply ban it and kill people's freedom to choose to become beautiful through plastic surgery, etc. Both sides took turns to argue their respective arguments and refute the loopholes of the other side's arguments, which was wonderful.
The third debate: This House believes that artists should not attempt to finish other artists' unfinished art works. The topic of art also made the debate literary. The first side first cited the Dream of the Red Chamber, one of China's four great works, and the famous unfinished statue Venus de Milos as examples to illustrate that attempting to finish other artists' unfinished art works often diminishes the artistic effect and value of the work. The work's artistic effect and value are overshadowed. It was also pointed out that originality is the most important value of any work of art and is the guarantee of the best experience for the viewer, and should not be taken away by others. In this regard, the opposing side also does not show weakness, taking the difficult design process of the Sydney Opera House as an example, pointing out that if another designer had not completed the work of the original designer Jorn Utzon, the birth and glory of such a unique opera house in human history would not have been possible now. The opposing side also emphasized that completing the unfinished work of others can also bring originality and bring into play more impossibilities in the work itself, which also gives the audience more freedom of imagination and creativity, and thus can convey more artistic value. In this debate, the positive side was a bit stretched out and failed to refute the opposing views one by one.
After the three wonderful debates, the two judges pointed out the outstanding problems in each debate and carefully scored all the debaters, and finally selected three excellent debating teams: the positive side (Yin Jianglu and Shani), the negative side (Fu Qingyou and Wen Chang), and the negative side (Zhang HaoYu and Jiang LinLing), and eight excellent debaters: Chi ZhengYu, Feng Luying, Fu Qingyou, Li Jiayi, Liao Mengyue, Sun Qi, Xu Yiteng, and Zhang HaoYu. Zhang HaoYu (ranked in order of last name). Congratulations to the outstanding debating teams and debaters! We hope all debaters will keep up the good work and keep debating with enthusiasm!
(Reported by the College of Foreign Languages office; Translated by Li Huixian)
