Central Minnesota District Qualifier

for the 2024 National Tournament

Big Questions Information

Big Questions Debate
Wednesday and Thursday, February 7-8, 2024 - VIRTUAL (NSDA Campus)

Resolution - Resolved: Belief in the supernatural is incompatible with belief in science. More information about BQ Debate, including a topic primer with sample cases and evidence for this topic, can be found at https://www.speechanddebate.org/big-questions/

Pairing Protocol: Each entry is guaranteed four preliminary rounds of competition; all winning records (4-0 and 3-1 records) will advance into elimination rounds. Each school may bring an unlimited number of entries. We will attempt to separate entries from each school from hitting each other in preliminary rounds, but will do so if it's otherwise impossible. We will follow the single-elimination method for elimination rounds. All pairing will be done in accordance with the 2023-2024 Unified Rules Manual.

Judges: Each school is required to bring 1 judge per every two entries (or fraction thereof.)

In order to facilitate the cost of NSDA Campus rooms, there is an $8/entry fee. In addition, all entered students must be paid, registered members of the National Speech and Debate Association.

Please be sure your technology department has taken the steps to allow your students to access NSDA Campus if they are competing from school.  You and your students should read this page to minimize any technology issues throughout the event: https://www.speechanddebate.org/campus-tech/

Schedule:

^{Wednesday February 7th}

Check in 3:30
Round 1 4:00 PM

Round 2 5:15 PM

Break 6:15 – 6:45 PM

Round 3 6:45 PM

Thursday February 8th

Check-in 3:30 PM

Round 4 4:00 PM

Quarters 5:15 PM

Break 6:15 – 6:45 PM

Semis 6:45 PM

No Final Round - the top two entries qualify for the national tournament, so no final round is needed. Alternates will be identified using Alternate Rule 1 of the NSDA Unified Rules Manual: Preliminary Round Seeding, which uses the following tiebreakers in order:

1 - The last round competed in (e.g., a student in finals places better than a student that does not advance from semifinals)

2 - Preliminary round seeding as determined by the tie-breakers used to break