Like sports, preparing for a debate tournament requires preparation and practice.Every month, a new topic is chosen for students to debate. The team splits into groups of two, who compete in public forum debates as partners.

Before writing their argument, students begin to gather research on the topic. The amount of time spent researching varies from 20-to-50 hours per topic, depending on the student, gathering as many articles needed to craft an argument.

The next step in preparing for a tournament is deciding who the ‘A’ and ‘B’ speaker are. Each speaker is required to write an essay.

For the ‘A’ speaker, “They prepare all of their speeches in advance,” debate advisor Angela Buzan said.

“The ‘B’ speaker gives a written speech, that they write in the round against the other team’s ‘A’ speech,” junior Andrew Jensen said.

On the day of the tournament, the ‘A’ and ‘B’ speakers go against ‘A’ and ‘B’ speakers from the opposing school. The ‘A’ and ‘B’ speakers work together to pick apart the argument of the other team. Once the both speakers from both teams have argued, judges decide who has won the competition.

In one day, teams compete in about four different debates and only teams who break, which means to win enough debates to make it to the semi-finals, return for the second day of competition. “Once you break,it’s the best feeling you can get.” junior Aamir Patel said.

Since the first year, the club has been expanding, they grew by 21 students since last year. However, the team is limited compared to Desert Vista who is first in the district and has over 200 students in the club.

Despite being smaller, the puma debate team is 29th out of 46 teams in the state.

Buzan hopes to expand the club in following years, to be able to enter more teams, and be more competitive against the bigger schools. “It’s time consuming, but the payoff is worth it,” Patel said.