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This page is dedicated to helping Tournament Directors access questions and develop question sets for their tournaments. At xTempore, we are available to help point you to the resources necessary to make hosting Extemp at your tournament as painless as possible. Remember that each state, qualifying, or national tournament may operate under different rules and regulations so ALWAYS check the appropriate rules manual to reflect your appropriate competitive context.
STEP ONE: What kind of tournament are you running?
It is important to determine, first, whether you are offering US Extemp (USX), International Extemp (IX), or a combination. Some states, and tournaments that qualify for certain national competitions (such as NSDA), will offer both USX and IX. Other states do not draw a distinction and use a mixture of questions in one combined category. Make sure you are using the approach that best conforms to the applicable rule book.
Second, determine how many rounds of competition you will be holding. Most tournaments offer two preliminary rounds followed by a semifinal and final round. Some may wish to only have a final round, depending on the size of the entry. Tournaments qualifying for NSDA, or NSDA itself, use a more complicated system of preliminary and elimination rounds and District Tournament Directors will have guidance on this. Knowing the number of rounds you will run is important to knowing how many questions you are going to need.
You will need one larger “preparation room” where students can draw their questions and prepare their speeches and a designated person to distribute the questions.
STEP TWO: How will you deliver your questions to competitors?
There are different norms for how questions are delivered to students at a tournament. The common practice is for students to receive three questions from which to select one question for competition. Historically, there have been two methods for delivering these questions. We have a preference for one method, but we will discuss both here. You will want to consider the norms in your region when deciding your approach.
The “Draw and Toss” Approach – In this method a large pile of questions is spread face down on a table, or questions are in a bag from which students draw three choices. They look at their choices, keep one and return the remaining to the table or bag and the discarded questions remain for subsequent students to draw from.
The “Preset” Approach – In this method three questions are placed on a slip of paper for each speaker. Every student who draws first in their section gets the same three questions, and so on. Discarded questions are not returned for other students to use. This is the method used in most college tournaments and at NSDA Nationals.
We strongly recommend the “Preset” approach for a number of reasons.
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- Statistically it is less disadvantageous to speakers who draw later. While it is debatable whether certain questions are objectively “worse” than others, if we assume that all students would find certain questions equally unpleasant to speak on, the students who draw near the end of the round have a higher probability f drawing discards that their peers found undesirable.
- It requires fewer questions to be prepared. If you keep sections to 5-6 students per section, you have a predictable number of questions. We recommend assuming 7 speakers per round (21 questions total) just to be safe and to plan for mishaps or ties that require taking more than six people to an elimination round.
- Greater care can be taken to curate the questions and provide better opportunities for students. By judiciously “paneling” three questions for each student, the writer can make sure that every student has one question that is a relatively “easy out” if they are struggling. The writer can also make sure to provide diversity among questions so that a single student in a round is not stuck with three questions about China or three questions about unemployment.
You also have choices in the manner in which these questions are handed to students. Most tournaments will use slips of paper with the questions printed on them. Students come to the front of the preparation room and retrieve the questions using one of the methods described above. Students in all sections draw simultaneously. If you have four sections, then the first speakers will all draw at the same time. Then seven minutes later the second speaker will draw, and so on.
There are now software-based tools that can release questions electronically to students. These are great resources for large tournaments, but if you are new to running extemp, its probably best not to try to tackle such software now. Rely on the “low tech” alternatives for the time being.
STEP THREE: Collecting, editing, and sorting your questions?
If you aren’t an experienced question writer, don’t panic. There are a number of useful resources (in addition to our own site) that regular produce questions that tournament directors can use. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) produces 50 questions monthly (25 USX, 25 IX) that are distributed through their state associations. The month following their release they are posted on the NFHS website. Check with your state association representative to learn more about how questions are shared in your state. NSDA also publishes extemp questions for public use along with more advanced analysis of questions.
If you still need more questions, looking at the form of the questions posted on these sites can be really helpful in formatting your own questions. Using current news sources, you may be able to formulate new questions based on the structure of older ones. It’s also helpful to ask coaches in your area who might attend your tournament whether they have questions they would like to contribute confidentially (without their students seeing or having practiced on them). You may also have former students – particularly students who have gone on to compete in extemp in college – who would be willing to help draft questions.
Once you believe you have enough questions (remember three questions per competitor per round!) you should review the questions for spelling, clarity, and currency. Sometimes your questions may become out-of-date overnight, simply because some event has changed the world in a short timeframe. Look for redundancies so that you do not risk a student getting a very similar question in more than one round.
If you are using the “Preset” method we recommend, begin organizing your questions into sets of three. If you have IX or a round dedicated only to international topics, be sure that there is diversity in the geography of the places represented. If you offer USX or a round dedicated to US topics, make sure there is diversity in the areas covered by the three topics. It is also advisable to make sure each student has at least one “closed-ended” question (a question that has only a yes or no answer) and one “open-ended” question (questions that use terms like who, what, where, why, and how). Students vary in their preferences for one set of constraints or the other. Do you best to make sure one question is a fairly straight-forward question that an a less-experienced competitor can manage. You will not always be able to do all of these things, but the more variety you can supply, the better.
Here is a sample of a fully-organized set of extemp questions for a hypothetical tournament. (File Pending)
STEP FOUR: How will you help your judges prepare for to judge this event?
Extemp can be a little intimidating to judge – particularly if you are not an experienced teacher or coach, or if you don’t follow current events as much. We recommend providing extemp judges with a handout that helps explain the event in a little more detail and reassures them that they don’t have to be experts to discern a good speech. We have a sample handout below that you can use as a model. Remember to make sure your handout reflects the rules in your state or competition. If you have students who are available to serve as timekeepers, where your rules permit, it might be reassuring to an inexperienced judge to have someone in the room who can provide time signals to students so that the judge can focus on their ballot.
It is also extremely helpful to give judges a copy of the questions that will be used in their round. This is much easier to do when you are using the “Preset” question distribution method. Simply run a copy of the sheet you used to organize the questions (before they are cut into strips for students) and attach a copy to the extemp ballots for the judges. If you are distributing and collecting ballots electronically, this may not be as convenient; but extemp judges can still be asked to stop by a table before the round to pick-up a copy. This allows the judge to refer to the text of the questions without having to have the student repeat the question orally or write it on the board. In many states, however, it is considered normal procedure for a student to read the question to the judge or write it on the board.
Here is a sample handout for extemp judges that you can adapt for your own use. (File Pending)
STEP FIVE: How can you help competitors after the tournament?
Sending a copy of the questions used at your tournament to the coaches who attended can be hugely helpful when they debrief with their students after the tournament. It can also provide those teams with extra questions to use in practice. If you use paper ballots, a copy of the questions can be included in the ballot packet at the end of the tournament. It is a nice courtesy to help maintain the quality of extemp performance on your circuit throughout the season.