By: Mira Zheng
I participated in one of the best international academic competitions there is. You may be wondering, what is this competition? Well, there is a little something called WSC, or The World Scholar's Cup.
Because it is an academic competition, WSC requires a lot of studying, and I mean a lot of it! You're going to need months of studying just to understand what the Millennium Prize Problems are. Lastly, You'll never know what happens next in this amazing competition. You may be a stuffed alpaca in one minute or decapitated in the next.
First of all, what is WSC? The World Scholar's Cup is an international academic competition with over 50 countries participating. Students sign up in teams of three to compete in the tests. The alpaca is their mascot and everyone gets one. The competition part consists of four major tests: the debate, Scholar's challenge, Scholar's bowl, and collaborative writing. First off, the debate pretty much explains itself. Each team would have to debate on a topic against another team and try to convince the judge that their side of the house is right or better. There are three rounds of debate and you either lollipop (that's their way of saying “you lose”) or win. The next Scholar's Challenge is a multiple-choice test on the six subjects that you should have studied for: Special Area, History, Social Studies, Science, Music and Arts, and Literature. After that, there is the Scholar's Bowl, my personal favorite, and it is like a big Kahoot game where a question based on the six subjects goes up and we use our clickers to try to guess the right answer. Finally, collaborative writing is where we write an essay on one of the six subjects. In WSC, they have a peculiar little obsession with chairs and I mean just chairs in general. They want all scholars to “Thank your chair today!”.
Also, by the way, the awarding ceremony is one of the best parts of the whole competition. You would get medals, trophies, mini stuffed alpacas, and even pineapples! There are three rounds in WSC: regionals, which is held all over the world, globals, which is only hosted in a few cities, and Toc, which stands for the Tournament of Champions and is operated at Yale University.
Every academic competition needs a bit of studying. If you ever need a study guide just use Avans Alpaca as your main source of information. I can definitely say that Avan is someone that you can rely on. On his website, he types down all the information we need for the Scholar's Challenge and Scholar's Bowl. Every new season, he gives you the updated information that you need. He even made Quizlets for every subject and sub-subject. For WSC, you're going to need a lot of time for studying. You can't have a very busy schedule to prepare for it. It's not like you only have to study 15 minutes every day because there is a lot of information. Every study session is at least an hour and a half long, whether it's by using Quizlets, reading information, or doing practice tests. Studying can give you a lot of rewards though. For example, information so you can get medals and awards.
Finally, my experience with the 2019 WSC Global Round in Beijing had a lot of positive effects. For example, I made a number of friends from countries other than Canada through the scavenger hunt since we were split into mixed country groups. The food was amazing, and I had a lot of fun at the scholars' ball. There were many fun events at the global round other than the four tests, but the tests are still interesting in their own way. I enjoyed the extremely crowded cultural fair, and I received a high quantity of free goods. As a result, I got a deck of cards, multiple items of stationery, food, jewelry, flags, finger puppets, and other unique items related to their culture.
In conclusion, WSC is a very interesting academic competition that requires a generous amount of studying, but my experience with my first global round was very positive.
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