Test Your Survival Knowledge, Part One ©

 

“Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, by Melinda Allan, from The Register-Guard, February 18, 1987, Eugene, Oregon, page 5D, the article can be found HERE

To read “Test Your Survival Knowledge, Part Two” go HERE, and to read “Test Your Survival Knowledge, Part Three” go HERE – Author’s note

 

I love reading about survival and the wilderness, and I enjoy taking survival quizzes.  “I need to get a hobby”, you say; unfortunately, this is my hobby!

 

Anyways, I read this one to my Daughter and my youngest Son, to see what answers they would give.  They were good sports about it and they did pretty well, however as we talked about the answers and why they were correct, I realized that they didn’t know some of the background information, which they would have needed to get the answers right.

 

An excerpt from “Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, by Melinda Allan, The Register-Guard, February 18, 1987, Eugene, Oregon, page 5D

 

So, take the quiz and then later we will talk about the answers.  No cheating now, don’t look at the answers!

 

An excerpt from “Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, by Melinda Allan, The Register-Guard, February 18, 1987, Eugene, Oregon, page 5D

 

Okay, how did you do?  Did you get them all right?  Hmmm...no, alright, let’s go over the answers.

 

Question one from “Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, by Melinda Allan, The Register-Guard, February 18, 1987, Eugene, Oregon, page 5D

 

The Rule of Threes, graphic by the author.

To answer question one, you need to think about The Rule of Threes, and here I disagree with the author of “Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, Melinda Allan.  She wrote that the answer to question one, was “C. Water”.

 

Answer one from “Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, by Melinda Allan, The Register-Guard, February 18, 1987, Eugene, Oregon, page 5D

 

I think that “B. Shelter”, would have been a better answer, because without shelter from the hostile elements, be it desert Sun, or the cold, wet and wind of the Northwest, or the wilds of the Northeast, you will be dead from exposure long before you dehydrate! 

 

Perhaps what she meant, was that you should first find a supply of water and then build your shelter nearby it.  If that is the case, then I agree with her and her choice of “C. Water”, otherwise not so much.

 

Question two from “Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, by Melinda Allan, The Register-Guard, February 18, 1987, Eugene, Oregon, page 5D

 

The author wrote that the answer to question two was “C. Two Days”. 

 

Answer two from “Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, by Melinda Allan, The Register-Guard, February 18, 1987, Eugene, Oregon, page 5D

 This is one of the questions that my kids got wrong.  However to answer this one, you really would have had to dig into your survival manuals, or you could have read my article “Desert Survival: Information For Anyone Traveling In The Desert Southwest, 1962”, HERE. 

 

This question and its answer is based on the research done by Dr. E. F. Adolph, et al., as published in The Physiology of Man in the Desert.  According to Dr. Adolph’s research, at that temperature, and with that amount of water, you would die in two days, whether you attempted to stay put or to walk out.  In this case, if you were stranded near a crashed plane or a stalled car, which is easy for rescuers to see, you should stay put.  If you KNEW absolutely, which way to go and you KNEW you could walk out in two days, then okay attempt to walk out at night.  If not, perhaps your evenings would be better spent building signals to help rescuers find you while you spent your days hiding from the moisture stealing Sun!

 

To see what the effect of various temperatures, energy expenditures and amounts of water would have on your ability to survive in the desert, see the chart below.

 

An excerpt from, “Desert Survival: Information For Anyone Traveling In The Desert Southwest, 1962” by the Maricopa County Civil Defense Joint Council. 

Because there is so much to unpack in the six questions Melinda Allan poses in “Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, I just can’t fit it all of it into one article.  So, tune in next week for “Test Your Survival Knowledge, Part Two”, where I will cover questions three and four.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Sources

 

Allan, Melinda; “Test your survival knowledge with a simple exam”, The Register-Guard, February 18, 1987, Eugene, Oregon, page 5D, https://books.google.com/books?id=T1ZWAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA16&dq=%22machine+gun+rentals+just+happen%22&article_id=5488,4631912&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi0ttLygvnqAhUDl3IEHbmeCMwQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg#v=onepage&q=%22machine%20gun%20rentals%20just%20happen%22&f=false, accessed August 5, 2020

 

Civil Defense Joint Council, Desert Survival: Information For Anyone Traveling In The Desert Southwest, 1962 (Maricopa County; Phoenix, Arizona [1962]) reprinted in http://docs.azgs.az.gov/SpecColl/1988-01/1988-01-0026.pdf, p. 5-20