In a 4e adventure against the suggested ELs, you can expect that you'll survive anything you encounter. Sure there is the supposed "tactical play", but my experience with the game has been that its really easy to choose actions that win the battle. If you accidentally do some boneheaded things, you can change tactics and win, but you'll end up resting earlier. In that way the tactical play doesn't actually change the long term results.
In a 1e adventure, if you do something stupid, you're dead. If you try and explore every room the dungeon, you're dead. If you often leap before you look, you're dead. The best way to survive 1e adventures is lots of caution, divination, henchmen, listening at doors, sending in henchmen, and so on. Luck is also very helpful. How to survive is not spelled out to you on your character sheet. You have to use your player skill to figure out a strategy to navigate the dungeon.