Three senior students from the English Department won this year's English Debate Contest last Tuesday (10/25), which awarded them NT$ 3,000 cash and a certificate.

They were Joseph Liu, Chen Yi-jun, and Chen Cun-ying, debating on the topic "Should passing an English Proficiency Test mandatory for graduation?"

One of the judges, Prof. Huang Yueh-kuey, commented that they won because they were on the ball with the topic and supported their arguments with clear examples and statistics. The performance of three other teams that participated was commendable, too. They came from the Chinese Department, Spanish Department and Department of Industrial Economics respectively.

Joseph Liu, who was also the head debater of last year's champion team, led the champion team. His experience certainly helps, but he still thinks good teamwork was the key to their success, a view shared by his fellow team members unanimously. Liu offered his advice to students who would like to have a taste of next year's debate contest that to have a wide base of knowledge is vital. As he enjoys reading current events and whatever that comes his way, it was relatively easy for him to collect data for this topic as he knew where to find them. Of course, don't forget to rehearse a few times before the contest.