Two Revere students succeeded in the National Qualifier competition to advance to Nationals in Speech and Debate in June. 

Sophomore Anish Chandran and senior Shreya Gupta have been a part of Speech and Debate since sixth grade and compete in the event Congress. Congress is an event where competitors act as mock congressmen and women and debate six current event topics that they have one to two weeks to prepare. In competitions, students are divided into chambers of around fifteen students, and each competitor is ranked by different judges. In more significant competitions, the chambers are broken into the House and the Senate just like in real life; Gupta competes in the House while Chandran competes in the Senate. 

Gupta explained exactly what happens in the chamber.

“People can pick if they want to pass the bill or go against it, and they give three minute long speeches on one of the sides, and then after the speech, they get asked questions by other people in the chamber. It’s a combination of speaking and debating,” Gupta said.

Gupta is competing for the first time at Nationals. She recently competed at the state tournament along with Chandran and made it to the semi-final round. 

In order to compete at Nationals, students must qualify in the National Qualifier tournament. Gupta explained how one can qualify. 

“Our [tournament] was the Akron-Canton district combined, and I think there were close to 120 people and there were 8 chambers in the house. [I] debated in a preliminary round and the top three of each chamber broke on to go to the final round,” Gupta said. 

Since the National Qualifier tournament is bigger than regular weekly tournaments, the chambers were divided into the House and the Senate. Chandran explained how to qualify in the Senate and the House. 

“The Senate is the top two from the National Qualifier, and [in] the House the top seven advanced [to] Nationals. So I was in the Senate and I was in the top two of my chamber, and Shreya had to advance to a final round and then she had to rank top seven in the final round to make it to Nationals,” Chandran said. 

Chandran is no stranger to Nationals since he competed in the high school competition last year as a freshman. He explained how Nationals went for him last year. 

“I advanced to semifinals, but once I got to semifinals, the competition was really hard. These people are kids that travel across the nation just for Speech and Debate,” Chandran said. 

Speech and Debate encompasses many different events, and Congress is one of the more labor intensive events. Students write multiple speeches and research both sides of the debate to be prepared for any questions. The different topics change each week, where many other events stick with the same speech the entire season. Congress coach David Burnett explained what the workload looks like for Gupta and Chandran in preparation for Nationals. 

“Each of them will have to prepare around 25 to 30 individual speeches. For most students, the time it takes to write and research and learn about [a] topic for a speech could be up to three hours but comfortably a couple of hours at least, so they are going to be putting in 60 to 70 hours a week just preparation to get ready for Nationals,” Burnett said. 

Burnett has been coaching the two since they were in sixth grade and explained the dedication they both have to the club. 

“I think both of them have taken on leadership roles within the squad, but they both every single week and seek to earnestly get better. What I appreciate about both of them is that they didn’t let the moments that didn’t go well or the speeches that didn’t go well or the bad brakes turn into more of them; they were able to persevere, adapt and use the lessons they learned to help make the entire squad better,” Burnett said.

Gupta and Chandran credit their growth to Burnett and the information he gives to help them prepare for a competition. 

The two get their topics on May 15th and have about a month to prepare for the competition in Phoenix, Arizona on June 16th.