Exam: 04.01 Synthesizing Information
Question 5 (Essay Worth 10 points)
(04.01 MC)

In this lesson, you selected one of two prompts to write a fully developed essay. Your prompt contains three texts that will be used as support for your writing.

Refer to your prompt's first provided source. In a response of at least three sentences, accomplish the following:

in one sentence, name the title and author of the source
in one sentence, identify the central idea of the article
in one sentence, provide an example from the article that supports its central idea

Source 1: "No Way Out?" By Darryl Danger, Adventurer Weekly Magazine

1. On a June night in 2018, a dozen teenage soccer players and their assistant coach ventured into a cave system in a Thailand national park. A fun adventure quickly turned into a harrowing ordeal. Heavy rain flooded the caves shortly after the group entered, and the boys went missing. For over a week, attempts to locate the lost boys were unsuccessful due to the unpassable water. Fortunately, two British divers were able to scuba their way through over two miles of muddy water and narrow passageways to locate the boys huddled in the darkness on a rock.

2. All the group members had survived the initial flood by keeping a level head in a time of potential panic. After finding shelter from the rising waters, the boys and their coach remained hopeful for rescue. They even tried to use rocks to dig their way out of the cave. Their optimism increased when the divers located them. The boys wrote notes to family members that reflected their positive outlook on the situation. The messages were delivered to their families on the outside by the divers. This positivity helped them through the next few days while rescuers devised a plan to get each boy to safety. Despite most of the boys' inability to swim, each safely made it out of the cave. Each boy was sedated, secured to a horizontal board, equipped with scuba gear, and transported out of the cave one by one by the rescue dive team.

3. A situation similar to the Thai soccer team occurred years earlier in Chile. After a mine collapse, 33 miners were trapped 2,300 feet underground for 69 days. While the men were aware of rescue efforts occurring on the surface above them, their food and water supplies dwindled. Regardless of their dire situation, the men never gave up hope. Although they made a 540 square foot space into their sleeping quarters, they had about 1 mile of caves to use for exercise. Immediately after the collapse, the men established a democracy in the tunnels. They voted on important decisions, selected jobs, created schedules, and boosted morale.

4. One man held religious services for the group. Another hosted talk show-style vlogs to transmit to family members and rescue workers on the surface. One of the miners served as the group's medic because of his experience caring for his mother. Another acted as the communications director, monitoring telephone and videoconferencing lines in the mine. They created a sanitation system to maintain clean living quarters as a group. Rescue workers arranged the delivery of positive letters from the miners’ families. In the face of continued threats to their physical and mental well-being, the miners lived through their ordeal with dignity.

5. How important is a group dynamic to survival in challenging situations? In 2003, mountaineer Aron Ralston was exploring a Utah canyon when a large boulder came loose and barreled toward him. It landed on his right hand and pinned it to the canyon wall. He was trapped. Ralston had told no one of his plans that day, and he had no way of calling for help. The boulder, which weighed 800 pounds, was immovable. Ralston had a small amount of water and two burritos. He rationed his supplies but ran out of water and food on day five. Ralston knew he had to escape. Ralston attributed his instinct to survive to thinking about the people in his life that mattered to him: his parents and his sister. He recorded a video saying goodbye to his family if his plan was unsuccessful. Ralston amputated his hand using a small survival tool and attempted to make his way out of the park. He had to rappel down cliffs and hike for miles with nothing to eat or drink. He finally encountered a family of tourists who called for help. Despite being alone in a terrible situation, Ralston persevered.