Policy debate drills for building advantages, answering disads and winning impact calculus. Practise CX online, on this year’s resolution or any other.
Policy debate, often called CX, is a two-on-two debate about whether the government should take a specific action. One resolution lasts the whole season, so teams research it in depth and the arguments get more technical as the year goes on. The affirmative defends a plan; the negative attacks it, often with several independent positions at once.
A round has four eight-minute constructives, each followed by three minutes of cross-examination, then four five-minute rebuttals. The negative block, the second negative constructive followed straight away by the first negative rebuttal, gives the negative thirteen minutes in a row, and the first affirmative rebuttal has five minutes to answer all of it. Every argument is tracked on the flow, and a dropped argument is usually treated as conceded.
Judges reward line-by-line coverage, clear links from the plan to its advantages and from the plan to the negative’s disadvantages, and impact calculus that compares magnitude, probability and timeframe. The final rebuttals are about telling the judge which impacts matter most and why.
Most prep happens before the tournament: writing the affirmative case and preparing blocks against the arguments you expect. In the round you get a few minutes of prep time to adapt them.
The drills below train the skills underneath all of that. Argument Anatomy and Impact & Illustration break an advantage into its parts. Burden Identification maps what the affirmative must prove. Concision keeps your blocks tight enough to read at speed. Rebuttal and Fallacy drills sharpen your answers and your cross-ex. Clash & Weighing trains the impact calculus that decides the 2NR and 2AR.
Each card says how the drill helps in a Policy round.
See how an advantage is built, from uniqueness to internal link to impact, before you have to defend one in cross-ex.
Trace who a plan helps and harms, the raw material for advantages and the disadvantages you will have to answer.
Write a structured argument with a clear link and impact, the building block of every advantage and off-case position.
Argue magnitude, probability and timeframe honestly, the impact calculus that decides the 2NR and 2AR.
Map the affirmative burdens, from inherency to solvency, and where the negative can make them hardest to meet.
Say more in fewer words, so your blocks stay clear at speed and your rebuttals cover every argument on the flow.
Write a 1AC or a set of blocks, structured so the judge can flow every argument as you read it.
Attack the weakest link of a real argument, with the precision you need to answer an advantage or a disad.
Build a full position, from stance to arguments to the answers you will need when the negative attacks it.
Compare impacts on magnitude, probability and timeframe, and write the impact calculus that ends a 2NR or 2AR.
Find the reasoning gap in a real argument, the kind of weakness that turns into a solid cross-ex question.
Write a resolution that calls for government action and still leaves room for many different plans.
Drill the parts of a round you can practise alone: writing a tight argument, answering one on the flow, and weighing impacts. The drills below give each a structure, and work on any resolution.
Impact calculus is comparing your impacts with your opponent’s on magnitude, probability and timeframe, so the judge knows which one outweighs. It is the core of the final rebuttals, and the Clash & Weighing drill trains it directly.
They help with what you spread. The Concision Drill trains you to say an argument in fewer words, which keeps blocks clear at speed. Delivery practice itself is not part of these drills.
Yes. Most drills let you choose your own motion or resolution, so you can practise on the topic you debate all season.