Q 01/05

Orienteering began in late-19th-century Sweden as map-and-compass training for which group of people?

A) Forest rangers

B) Postal couriers

C) Army officers

D) Mountain guides

Answer · why

C) Army officers

Army officers ran the first race, at the Stockholm garrison's yearly meet in 1893. The word itself had been coined seven years earlier at the Karlberg...

Q 02/05

Which colour joins white on the three-sided flags that mark control points at orienteering events worldwide?

A) Red

B) Orange

C) Yellow

D) Green

Answer · why

B) Orange

Orange took over from red: the earlier specification for the flag was white and red. Each face of the modern one is a square about 30 cm across.

Q 03/05

On an orienteering map, where green means thick vegetation that slows a runner, what does plain white show?

A) Runnable forest

B) Private farmland

C) Bare rock

D) Unmapped ground

Answer · why

A) Runnable forest

Runnable forest is left white, which surprises walkers used to green woods. On these maps the darker the green, the thicker and slower the going.

Q 04/05

Which kind of terrain is printed yellow on an orienteering map, with the brightest shade for the clearest ground?

A) Rocky ground

B) Paved areas

C) Marshland

D) Open land

Answer · why

D) Open land

Open land is yellow, and the shade matters: bright yellow is a lawn you can race across, while pale yellow is rough meadow with tall grass.

Q 05/05

The parallel lines printed across every orienteering map are aligned to what, sparing runners any compass correction?

A) Magnetic north

B) True north

C) Grid north

D) The prime meridian

Answer · why

A) Magnetic north

Magnetic north is where a compass points, so a map drawn to it lets a runner take a bearing straight off the paper with no adjustment for declination.