Zombie Survival Test

Some guy who goes by "ci8db4uok" made a little quiz called "The Zombie Scenario Survival Test". I'm going to be honest - I'm unimpressed. While I did perform well enough to be considered a survivor (at 78%), I feel that a sufficient argument can be made for every one of my answers over what his quiz may have been expecting.

The bottom line is this - many of the questions on this quiz are simply too ambiguous to reasonably expect anyone to score 100%, no matter how skilled in zombie survival. So here's what I'm going to do. I am going to consult with the other contributors to this blog to create our own zombie survival test with more objective questions. I will then put the link to the test permanently on the site for all to test themselves.

Expect it within the week!

Situation in Pittsburgh all too common

In October of last year, The Onion reported a fascinating story that unfortunately didn't receive the full media attention it deserved. Apparently the Zombie Preparedness Institute performed a study in Pittsburgh revealing that a complete zombie takeover would happen in a maximum of 10 days!

This should not come as a surprise to those of us who research this problem. It only underscores the fact that PERSONAL PREPAREDNESS should be the primary objective for average civilians since the only way to prevent nightmarish scenarios like this one from obtaining is for city, state, and world governments to recognize and deal with the problem - something they've been entirely unwilling to do.

Poor evacuation routes and an ignorant citizenry are listed as the primary factors leading to the takeover. In the absense of governmental agencies willing to fix the evacuation route problem, the only chance we have for even a partial cure is to combat ignorance of the zombie problem. Knowledge is power - if we understand the threat zombies pose we will have a far higher possibility of understanding how to overcome that threat.

Recent Poll Results

Here are the most recent poll results. Again, I'm pretty impressed by our readers' collective knowledge of zombie survival principles.

"What is the ideal size for a survival party during the beginning stages of a zombie apocalypse?"

1-2 people - 5% (14 votes)
3-5 people - 48% (142 votes)
6-10 people - 31% (92 votes)
11-15 people - 4% (13 votes)
16-20 people - 1% (4 votes)
21 or more people - 10% (29 votes)

In the interest of disclosure I chose the "6-10 people" option. A full 79% (234) of you chose between 3 and 10 people. This is very good because at least three people are needed to provide security from each necessary direction, but at 10 the group is still small enough to be efficient.

The problem with larger groups of 11 or more (especially 21 or more), which sadly a full 15% (46) of you chose, is that they are less mobile, highly detectable, harder to transport, harder to provide basic resources for and are far more prone to power struggles. Each of these factors dramatically decreases the chances of short term (much less long term!) survival for the group as a whole.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our poll, and I hope to have more great participation in our next one.

Gettin' the blog back together!

It's a miracle. It seems that after an eight month haitus the zombie bloggers are blogging again. This is partially because we're addicted to zombie survival and partially because the demand for survival experts has been shown to be high. So I'm going to kick off the renewed blog by creating a new poll and posting what I consider to be the three primary principles for survival in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Any discussion or arguments for more principles or refining of my own principles will be welcome.