HS Congress

Preset Randomized Recency

At BQS, District, and State Tournaments

Click Here for Explanatory Document

The Presiding Officers must use precedence and recency to determine the next speaker as well as the next questioner.  Preset randomized recency must be used to determine each participant’s initial “recency” with respect to speeches and questioning.  This will be established based on the seating chart order unless detailed otherwise.  For speeches, the ordering is from low to high.  For questioning, the ordering is from high to low.  For example, in a chamber with 15 participants, the student listed in the first slot (1) has priority for the first speech (followed by 2, 3, 4, etc), whereas the student listed in the last slot (15) has priority for the first question (followed by 14, 13, 12, etc).  As the chamber progresses, speakers and questioners must be selected correctly based on precedence and recency.  If a PO selects the incorrect student as the next speaker or next questioner, this can only be addressed and remedied at that time (prior to the speech or questioning) by a student, the parliamentarian, or another judge in the chamber.  A PO’s incorrect selection of the next speaker or questioner based on the preset randomized recency will not be grounds for a protest.

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