One of the biggest challenges in extemp is balancing preparation with performance. For beginners and even seasoned speakers, last-minute cramming can lead to either blanking out mid-speech or overloading your brain with facts you barely understand. Reducing your prep time doesn’t mean doing less, instead, it means doing smarter, targeted practice that helps you actually retain information and speak with confidence.
Here are four simple strategies to sharpen your knowledge and cut down on unnecessary prep stress:
1. Offline Prep
Start by picking a topic area, for example, American foreign economic policy. Set a timer and talk out loud for as long as possible about everything you know on the topic, without using Google, notes, or sources. Don’t worry about accuracy or specific citations yet. Just focus on keeping the information flowing.
This exercise does two things: first, it reveals gaps in your foundational knowledge, and second, it boosts confidence in the areas you already know well.
Once you’ve done this a few times across different topics, you’ll be able to focus your research on areas that actually need work, rather than wasting time repeatedly prepping the same familiar points.
2. Identify Regional or Topic-Based Patterns
For International Extemp especially, it helps to map out “base issues” that show up repeatedly across regions or topics. Once you identify these patterns, they become mental shortcuts for your analysis.
Example: Region-wide South America
- The region is resource-rich but has historically been exploited through colonial and neocolonial systems.
- U.S.-backed regimes often evolved from authoritarian to semi-democratic, but weak institutions and outside interference fuel corruption and instability.
- Many countries overinvest in volatile industries, like Venezuelan crude oil, creating “primary-product dependency” that limits economic growth and stifles innovation.
- Resource nationalization often leads to authoritarian power grabs, feeding the cycle of economic and political instability.
Recognizing these base-level patterns gives you pre-built, flexible points you can adapt during prep, especially when answering questions about causes, long-term trends, or global significance.
3. Use Default Points for Versatility
A default point is a broad, reusable argument you can apply to multiple questions. These are lifesavers when you’re short on prep time or faced with an unfamiliar topic.
Example: Debt-Trapping and Aid Imperialism:
International organizations like the World Bank and IMF often lend to struggling nations under conditions that worsen long-term dependency. Loans come with strings attached, meaning economic reforms that often benefit foreign investors more than the local population. This pattern shows up in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and even Europe, making it a reliable point to deploy across different questions.
Developing a mental list of default points helps you stay calm under pressure and ensures you always have something substantial to say. You may or may not have citations memorized for this, the main objective is having in-depth knowledge highly applicable to most scenarios if you run out of time.
4. Curiosity Over Cramming
Strong extempers don’t just cram headlines the night before a tournament. They build long-term knowledge by finding news formats that genuinely interest them. Whether it’s through podcasts, YouTube analysis channels, KQED radio, or newsletters, the more engaged you are with current events, the easier it becomes to recall relevant examples in prep.
Curiosity builds a durable, connected understanding of world affairs, one that won’t crack under pressure.
Final Thoughts
Good extempers don’t succeed because they memorize the most facts, they succeed because they train their brain to process information flexibly and speak with clarity. These strategies will not only cut your prep time but also make you more efficient, more confident, and ultimately a stronger speaker.
Looking for more ways to stay on top of practicing? Check out our asynchronous speech review service, ready to help take your speaking to the next level.