Survival Test

Got to noodling on this tonite. Was reading a couple of the threads about gear. I clearly understand that a lot of the posters on this forum are experienced and knowledgeable beyond anything I will ever achieve. I on the other hand be your average joe. Some interest over the years in survival topics, some camping experience, heck I even watch TV shows on survival . I have some appropriate gear but not much. Some money for it, but not much.

So let me get to the point. Taking a scenario of urban survival, what 25 questions would you nominate to test an individual's knowledge on said topic? Would you prefer a yes/no, true/false, or essay type format? My own thoughts are that a test should reflect the time critical nature of survival situations. In other words the test should be rapid fire. Not too much "thinking" allowed. Fast, instinctive, reactive responses. Bing bam boom. 2 minutes or 5 minutes, it's all done. The real world situation isn't going to allow for "higher level thought processes". Gut reaction is good. Right? The test would be a way of reinforcing good concepts along with it being a learning experience. So taking the urban scenario what are your test questions? Here are a couple of mine:

1. Your at work. Where are your food sources, water sources, and shelter?
2. Describe 3 sources of fuel for fire in your automobile?
3. From your child's school, how many routes can you take to get to a more (chose one - rural environment/urban environment)?
4. Name 5 commonly agreed upon survival items to keep in the house?
5. Name 3 ways to communicate your location to rescue personnel in aircraft?

Thought provoking questions require thoughtful answers. Rapid fire, instinctive, reactive responses may be appropriate for a hands on skills test, but might not be appropriate for the book exam. Were you planning to have a hands on skill test? My last took an hour in a swimming pool.

I don't think rapid-fire regurgitative answers are what you want to test for. Each survival situation will be different and will require you to analyse, think, adapt, and come up with a plan. The ability to instantly spit out sound bites from some book learning experience you had doesn't count for much IMHO.

Good point. Yup there are book tests and hands on tests. Let me clarify a bit. I was intending to establish a baseline of knowledge with a book test. Yes "how to build a fire" could be tested with a hands on demonstration. Need a place, resources, and time. Not to say also a "teacher or monitor". I am thinking something someone could spend a bit of time taking, maybe even just printing off from this forum and end up realizing "hey I have a good bit of knowledge, or heck I'm gonna die" at the end. If I was gonna take several survival classes and spend hundreds of dollars on training I would skip this idea. So keep it simple would be my guiding principle. A range of low level questions (who, what, where, when)and some higher level ones would be ok also (analysis, why, best approach). From my old teaching days here is a good order of questions for testing...

"http://instructionaldesign.gordoncomputer.com/Objectives.html"

I suggest more of a multiple guess format based on a presented scenario. A, B, C, D, and E - all of the above (or not).

For example,

You are in your office and an earthquake hits. What is the first thing you would do?

A. Dive under a desk and hang on.
B. Call 911.
C. Run outside.
D. Start praying.

Fast and to the point. Anyone can either take their time or do the instinctive response. It will be up to them.

Its hard to say really

Who are you giving this test? By which criteria would you assign a score?

I guess I would start with questions that involve the most likely encountered urban emergencies.

# 1, Could you lead yourself and your loved ones safely from your home if blindfolded?

# 2, What would you do if an intruder entered your house?

# 3, If you are away from your home and diaster strikes, separating you from your supplies, what do you do now ?

# 4, How many days could you live off of the food and water you now have in your home?

# 5, How could you collect, store and make water safe to drink if the power went out for an extended period?

Thats just a few off the top of my head, If I ever felt the need to be quizing someone anyway. I guess I would ask questions that require a mix of detailed
and strait forward responses.

Ouuoooo let me try this one.

C, B and the D in that order !

Only one answer per customer.

Personally, I prefer not being there as the right answer.

Not being there was not among the available answers.

Just thinking outside the box.

In reading several years of older posts on this forum and others, I see these types of scenarios have been discussed many, many times over. In regards to the OP's idea of a 25 question test on survival knowledge and the suggested questions, there are way too many human and real world variables that make these types of generic and non specific questions difficult to give an accurate answer.

I can tell you from real world experience, overall survival knowledge cannot be statistically and accurately captured in a 25 question test. For example, my wilderness experience and knowledge from living in a northern area of NA is totally different then a person who lives in say, New Mexico or Arizona.

If I was to try and survive in a hot desert climate, I would quickly be in dire straits whereas I am very much at home and experienced in living in a northern Boreal forest environment. Due to this, I know my chances of survival would be greatly increased in the Boreal environment as compared to the hot desert environment.

If you'd read a few more threads you'd have realised your chances of people on this site answering 25 questions in the way you have set out were nil. Err... why should we let you set us an exam?
The Sock

The real survival test is given at unannounced times and locations. No proctor is required. Grading is pass/fail.

I, too, am skeptical of this kind of academic exercise. It doesn't seem very realistic or useful.

That depends. Some scenarios do allow time, and sometimes a panicked, instinctive reaction can do more harm than good. Of the five example questions you give, none of them strike me as being especially time-critical. For example, my work place has a small canteen, but I'm not necessarily going to rush there without thinking when disaster strikes.

Good point. Consider the current tsunami warning in effect for Hawaii and many Pacific ocean areas. Lots of time to prepare, since it won't arrive until almost noon local time.

>Good point. Consider the current tsunami warning in effect for >Hawaii and many Pacific ocean areas. Lots of time to prepare, >since it won't arrive until almost noon local time.

But it's not what we are talking about. obviously in some situations you don't have time to plan. A bus is coming at you at you; run!!

but the question specifically says:

Your at work. Where are your food sources, water sources, and shelter?
2. Describe 3 sources of fuel for fire in your automobile?
3. From your child's school, how many routes can you take to get to a more (chose one - rural environment/urban environment)?
4. Name 5 commonly agreed upon survival items to keep in the house?
5. Name 3 ways to communicate your location to rescue personnel in aircraft?

all of these are ones where you can plan in advance. You aren't going to let yourself burn to death because you forgot 'fire extinguisher', when you were blurting out what to keep in the house, then and thought of it later. So what advantage is there in being able to reel the right answers off?
The first rule of survival is 'STOP for Stop Think Observe Plan'.
The Sock

I think you are making a basic assumption that is probably a poor one, if not completely wrong. IMO, the most important thing in an emergency situation of any kind is to think before doing. Now sometimes you won't get that chance. But even if the house is on fire and you need to get out, you can afford to take five or ten seconds to think first before doing something in a panic.

Most survival situations are not time critical. If you are lost in the woods the last thing in the world you need to be doing is trying to make a quick decision when you would be better off making camp and getting some sleep and figuring out what to do in the morning after a good rest and the panic has subsided and you are able to think more clearly.

BTW, you mispeeled "you're".

If this test were for "diagnostic" purposes, it could have some value. A generic test would be of minimal value. But if it were based on number of specific scenarios, it could help teach a the *process* of evaluating situations, determining priorities, and being clear about what *not* to do.

But there is no substitute for hands-on, boots on the ground experience. You don't *know* until you *do.*

Actually, the toughest thing to learn IMO is how to switch your brain from normal mode to survival mode. Most people do this far too late, when they're in too deep. You have to learn to listen to your spidey sense / BS detector when it tells you to avoid or take early steps to keep you *out* of a survival situation.

Many, if not most, survival situations develop gradually, as the consequence of successive poor decisions. Here is a recent example:

forums.eguipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=n...flat&part=2

Briely, a couple sea kayaked to a nearby island and did not return on time. The search found the man in the water and the woman drowned. They did not carry signaling devices and refused the offer of a radio to take on their trip.

The survival situation arose because the couple decided not prepare for any kind of problem, turning down the offer of a radio and declining to carry anything with which to signal (signal mirror would have worked great), setting themselves up for tragedy.

The report does not go into this but it appears self evident that they did not know how to deal with capsized sea kayaks. Capsizing in a sea kayak happens all the time and dealing with capsizes should be, and usually is, a part of elementary training.

Another choice at some point in this chain of decisions could have resulted in an entirely different, and happier, outcome.

And you Misspelled the word "misspelled" there Mr Spelling bee.

Unless it was intentional.

It was intentional, thus the smiley face.

A lot of people are wired so they are almost incapable of doing nothing, and a lot of times doing what they think of as nothing is exactly what they should be doing. Its really not nothing to take some time to think about what is going on and formulating a plan rather than trying to hurry up and do "something". Many times the rush to do something ends up in doing the wrong thing.

Our society often puts a premium on "doing" as opposed to "thinking", and people have learned to appear busy as a self defense mechanism.

A lot of people are also convinced they are infallible, despite much evidence to the contrary. They just cannot believe they have screwed up so they press on. There are others who believe their training and experience will get them through, but that turns out to be a bad choice many times. One might think that people who have training and experience would be far less likely to take unnecessary risks just because they are unnecessary, but it does not always work out that way.

I am not so much convinced there is a brain survival mode. I am convinced there are times people are not thinking clearly about their situation and it bites them in the back side. I suspect it is hubris or panic that gets them into trouble.

I am constantly reminded as I read and write on this site and on others, how profoundly a person's location affects what they know, what they do, and what they believe. An example would be the use of stoves. In California, there seems to be an inner fear of wildfire, due no doubt to actual wildfire events repeated annually there. All outdoors people there seem to carry a little stove with them. Where I live, there is little to no chance of wildfire most of the year. Whenever I want fire, I build a little one on the ground, get close, and stay warm. Other than my two burner Coleman for camp, I have never owned a little stove. I'm sure that equally experienced outdoors persons from California (and other areas as well) would think I was crazy for that. I just don't need a stove. Any test that would purport to measure outdoor skills and strategies would have to be strictly regional in scope and situational in focus.

Good point about Californians and our stoves. Just offhand, I can think of three really large wildfires in this region originating from escaped campfires (one was intended to be a distress signal). An additional factor is the serious aridity in Arizona and California at some times of the year. Another local fire (21,000 acres) began from sparks originating in a roadside plinking session. I had been in the area just 48 hours earlier and I had decided that the woods were just too dry for safe entry - I was going to stay away until the rains came.

I've got lots of really cool small stoves (actually they can get pretty hot). We can export to Minnesota.

I tend to agree with dougwalkabout. I like the test as a diagnostic or thought-provoking exercise. If you can nudge people a little into thinking about simple things power outages at first, then you may be able to get them to ramp it up over time. Use the test as a tool of encouragement and reinforcement. Throw some off-beat ones in there also just to mix it up; something about marshmallows or bathing cats.

I have only got half way through this thread but I like the idea of a quiz. Honestly it would have to be a test / quiz that would get you to think vs a test with right or wrong answers. I guess anything that keeps the "plan" or a plan anyway, on the forefront of your brain then it has accomplished what it set out to do. It made you learn, think and question. I like to critically think out things, however, after a while you get VERY fast at going through a scenerio. I like the idea.

Actually, I agree; I didn't mean that literally.

It's more about being open to perceiving a situation from different perspectives, through different lenses as it were.

And from that, being willing to accept that your situation has the potential to go sideways, your priorities have changed, and your actions must be redirected accordingly.

Many people seem to stay on the rails of their everyday, normal priorities and routines. Meeting a schedule, getting to a destination, etc. So they keep pushing down that snow-covered road, for example, when they should have turned around. By the time they are aware that they're in trouble, they're in deep trouble.

I don't know if it's possible to learn this without having a number of near misses.

Anyone want to set one of these quizzes? I'm not sure what people mean. It was the 'for no reason; make a snap decision without any thought' bit that we all found foolish. So maybe a quiz would be worthwhile
The Sock

Excellent! I have mushrooms, mud, and cool wet moss to trade.