The World Scholar’s Cup

The World's Scholar's Cup, also known as WSC, is an international team academic program that aims to teach students engaging, not-taught-in-school lessons and finding common ground between people of different statuses. Each tournament consists of multiple groups of three (sometimes two) students from the same or different schools. Every tournament is divided into the junior and senior divisions. Ages 14 and older are considered seniors. Any team is allowed to compete in the regional round. However, suppose they would like to join a global round. In that case, they must either exceed an 18,000-point threshold at a Regional Round, earn a wildcard at a Regional Round, or apply for an exceptional wildcard.

The events in the tournaments consist of the scholar's bowl, collaborative writing, scholar's Challenge, and team debate. The scholar's bowl is a multiple-choice quiz bowl held in a theater. Each team works together to answer the questions displayed on the screen with a clicker given to them. Students are given 15 minutes to discuss and submit their answers. Each question following the previous one gets more complex and is worth more points. Sometimes, rapid-fire questions must be answered within 5 seconds, and other teams might even shout out the wrong answer, hoping you will click it.

Collaborative writing is an event based on arguments of six different prompts of six subjects. Each participant in a team must pick a different prompt. They must write for, against, or about it. Any writing form is allowed. The students have 20 minutes to discuss and research their arguments with their teammates. Afterward, they get 40 minutes to write their essay. With no minimum or maximum word count, students are also expected to mention their sources. Following this writing period, students get another 15 minutes to work together and edit another member's work. However, they are not allowed to finish it.

Scholar's Challenge is a 120-question multiple-choice exam of the six different learned. The award for the highest score in the Scholar's Challenge is known as the Jac Khor Award. Students are allowed to choose multiple answers per question. Although only one of them is right, choosing multiple answers earns points inversely proportional to the number of answers chosen by participants. Each question is worth 1 point. If a student chose two answers and one was correct, they would get 0.5 points. If they were to choose three answers and one was correct, they would get 0.33 points, and so on.

Team Debate is a debate between two teams of opposing schools debating between a random topic chosen. All teams are given assigned rooms and topics concerning the year's syllabus. Each team debates three times. Every team will get 15 minutes to research and consult each other. They can use their devices or outside resources for their debate preparation. After the 15-minute time limit, they are no longer allowed to use devices. Each team member is given 4 minutes to present their argument. The judge will signal the time left using knocks. 2 knocks mean the speaker must stop speaking. After each speaker, they are given 60 seconds to prepare before the next speaker is called out. Following the last speaker's turn, both teams must give positive and constructive criticism to the opposing team for about 90 seconds before the judge (s) announce the winning team. Then, the winning and lollipops (non-winning teams) will proceed to a different designated room to face another team with the same number of wins and non-wins.