Attendance should not be compulsory in college
Most Indian universities require 75% attendance to sit an exam. Students argue that recorded lectures and self-study make the rule outdated; faculty argue attendance is what keeps a weak student from disappearing until the exam.
A beginner-level session of about 10 minutes. You join 3 other speakers already in the discussion. You get 45 seconds to prepare before it starts.
Every person in the room has a stake in this one and it is the same stake, which is why panels like the topic and why it goes wrong. Within two minutes you can have four people agreeing that attendance rules are pointless and nobody testing the claim. The move that rescues it is separating the rule from what the rule is for: seventy-five per cent is a crude instrument aimed at a real problem, the student who disappears in August and reappears at the exam. Argue for scrapping it and you owe the room a replacement, because self-discipline is not one. The other trap is the slide into complaints about your own college, which turns a discussion into a queue of grievances.
Angles worth taking
- Separate the rule from the thing it exists to prevent — only one of the two is easy to defend.
- If you want it scrapped, name what replaces it before someone asks, because someone will.
- One sentence of personal experience lands; three turns the discussion into a complaints queue.
- Somebody will say recorded lectures solve it — ask which subjects that is actually true for.
- The room will crowd onto the student side, which leaves the faculty argument as open ground.
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Browse all group discussion topicsThe format
Speakers in the room
You plus 3 other speakers
Preparation time
45 seconds
Modes
Learn (guided) · Mock (exam-real)
How a group discussion session works
Read the situation
You get the topic and the real disagreement behind it — who wants what, and why the obvious answer is not obvious. No hunting for context.
Take your prep time
A short prep clock, the same as a real round. Enough to pick a position and one example. Not enough to write a speech, which is the point.
Get into the discussion
The AI participants open with their own positions and keep going. You enter when you find the gap, name what you are adding, and hold your turn.
Read the report
How much of the discussion was yours, whether you built on others or restarted, your fluency and clarity, and the two things to fix next time.
What you're scored on
A GD panel is not scoring the topic. Across every discussion below, the same four things decide the result, and they are what the report measures.
Contribute real points, build on what others say, and hold your share of the discussion without dominating it.
Content
Whether your points are real — an example, a number, a consequence — or a restatement of the topic in longer words.
Entry and airtime
Whether you got in at all, how often, and whether you held your share without running the whole room.
Listening
Whether you answered what was actually said. Building on someone, or disagreeing with their point specifically, scores far above a prepared line.
Delivery
Pace, clarity and steadiness under interruption — the part that decides whether a good point survives being made.
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