Here is this week’s Extemp Central news quiz. Good luck!
Month: August 2021
The last two speech seasons have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the cancellation of the 2020 NCFL Grand National Tournament and made last year an online-only year for teams across the country. Hopefully this season begins the transition back to in-person competitions, but regardless of the format of this competition year Extemp Central hopes to provide resources for those doing extemporaneous speaking across the country.
In keeping with that mission, we do plan to revive the Extemp Central National Points Race as well as provide more recaps of national circuit and local competitions. As always, we appreciate our readers providing results so we can post them. Aside from following results, other past bits of Extemp Central’s content will be making a comeback as well, namely news quizzes and R&Ds. Here is the content schedule that can be expected for this season.
Mondays: HotTopics International and United States Extemp questions
Tuesdays: Recaps of local results and/or results from national circuit competitions. This may also be a time for the posting of specialty columns on upcoming tournaments and/or interview pieces.
Wednesdays: News quiz posting in short answer format (spoiler tags will hide the answers)
Thursdays: Recap of any local results and/or national news not posted on Tuesdays. This may also be a time for the posting of specialty columns on upcoming tournaments and/or interview pieces. The revived National Points Race will also feature columns on this day.
Fridays: Weekly R&D about a pertinent, newsworthy topic
Extemp Central will soon be doing interviews with NSDA national winners Pranav Pattatathunaduvil and Laurel Holley, which we will hope to have posted in the coming weeks. We will also be assembling the tournament calendar for 2021-2022 in time for the beginning of the national circuit season in September.
1. Is the U.S. headed for another COVID-19 lockdown?
2. Should state governors issue mask mandates for schools or leave the decision to local officials?
3. If Sarah Palin decides to run for the Senate, how big of a threat is she to Lisa Murkowski’s re-election hopes?
4. How much power should social media services have to remove content they believe to be “disinformation”?
5. Does a delta COVID surge constitute a major threat to President Biden’s domestic agenda?
6. Should Congress have extended the federal eviction moratorium?
7. Are Texas Democrats winning their battle against the state’s proposed voting law?
8. What is the best way to reform policing in the United States?
9. Will vaccination mandates have to come from employers instead of the federal government?
10. How can the U.S. prevent a shortage of critical semiconductors in the future?
1. What impact could the Querdenker movement have on the 2021 German elections?
2. Could Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi put Libya back together?
3. Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan inevitable?
4. Do economic problems in North Korea provide an opening for a “grand bargain” over its nuclear program?
5. How should ASEAN react to Myanmar’s military extending the nation’s state of emergency?
6. What should Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh do to better economic conditions in the Gaza Strip?
7. Was Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s term a disaster for his country?
8. Will rising political turmoil in Tunisia undermine the gains of the Arab Spring?
9. Is Russia’s military becoming overextended in proxy conflicts?
10. What steps does the ANC need to take to fix South Africa’s economic woes?