THE VOCABULARY DETECTIVE
The debate score
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tentative
revise
consistent
discrepancy
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At 3:10, the debate club’s notice board named Cedar the winner. Fifteen minutes later, a new sheet named Maple. “The judges must have changed their scores,” someone said.
The first sheet was marked tentative. Its totals were still awaiting a check, so they were not final. The scorekeeper had been asked to revise the sheet—to correct it if the check found a mistake.
Maya carried both versions to the desk. There was a discrepancy between them: the team totals differed even though they were meant to describe the same debate. She wanted a version consistent with the original score cards, one that agreed with what the judges had recorded.
The signed cards had been collected before either announcement. Nobody needed to guess which team a judge liked best. Maya could compare those cards with the two posted sheets and see what the change actually involved.