TLDR: We needed to read a book for a competition, we couldnt get the book on time and we mighte bombed out of the first phase. Think of us like TSM in groups, confident af, we pass a tier 10 test and all the sudden everyone thinks youre about to make the main event. Also I just needed to vent, this situation is pretty funny to me, but also frustrating because it was my job to read the book and im confident af that I could've memorized all the information.
Context: Me and a group of 3 smart, handsome, truly cream of the crop individuals decided to sign up for our schools HOSA club. HOSA is basically a club for all the future health professionals to compete on set topics (think FBLA but medical). Me and these gentlemen decided it would be fun to do a biomedical debate as a team. Since we needed 1 team event and one individual event, we thought it would be awesome to do it as a team, get a cool experience, bunk in the hotel. You know, pretty chill school activities.
Anyway, our debate was about the COVID 19 pandemic and a specific thing that we are for or against (not gonna say what since i dont want to start an argument). We have to know both sides since the event is completely random in what you will get. For example, theres a big bracket and each match is 6 mins (give or take), the judges randomly draw what side your group has to defend. So if the debate is about chocolate cake being good or it being bad, and you only study it being bad, then youre screwed if your team gets picked to do why its good. We had a plan to study 3 different sources since the organizers are nice enough to give you the source material and you just have to separate relevant and irrelevant points for the debate. There was 4th source that we saw, and it happened to be a book. The teacher said she would buy it for us and send us the pdf since we were running low on time at this point.
The first stage to this debate (to see if youre even prepared to speak in front of the judges) is a 50 multiple choice test, 30-minute time limit. Fastforward to Feb 11th, we have 4 days till the test. We cant buy the hardcover book since it would take too long to ship, and if even if we got it by lets say the 13th it would be really hard to read it and retain solid info. The book was 310 pages so if we got the pdf friday I would have 4 days to read 78 pages, which is extremely easy. Unfortunately for us, the book wasnt available as a pdf and the teacher wouldnt be able to share it with us. We still have 3 other sources so whatever right? We should be fine right? Wrong. We get to the test and guess what 50% of the test is based on the book. It wouldve been cool to go up to a stage and debate members from all across the US so im kinda bummed out, but we still got Pharmacology so hoping I do better in the individual event. Just wanted to vent a little feel free to ignore.
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