These two are areas
Texas is not a length on this board. It is a land area, about 696,000 square kilometres, and the catalog figure is 695,662. Metropolitan France is a land area too, about 552,000 square kilometres, catalog 551,695. You cannot lay them end to end the way you lay two reaches end to end. There is no north-to-south line hiding inside these two numbers that this round wants from you. If the question says area, answer with area. A memory of driving across one of them is a length, and length and area are never paired.
Texas is larger than metropolitan France. It is not double. Double would be a ratio of 2, and a true ratio of 2, half or double, scores 45 when that really is the miss. Here the claim to say is larger, not twice. If your sentence is twice France, you have overshot the catalog. If your sentence is about the same, you have ignored a gap that is real and still well short of double. The red outline after you lock in is the true area's shape against your guess. Read larger, not double, before you touch the control.
The picture takes a square root
Area drawings use the square root of the area so both shapes fit on one board. A raw area, drawn as a block of ground, would make one region a speck or a flood when the two differ. The square root lets you see both silhouettes. That kindness is only in the drawing. The printed ratio, and the ratio the score uses, is still the area ratio, not the ratio of the sides you see. If you grade the picture by eye as if those sides were the answer, you grade the drawing aid instead of the land.
Say the width feeling, then square it, before an area round. A width feeling of about 1.2 squares to an area ratio of about 1.44. A width ratio of 1.5 is an area ratio of 2.25. Those two examples are the habit, not a claim that Texas and France sit on either example. Use them so your mouth does the step the eye skips. You look at two shapes, you feel a mild difference in width, and you must not lock that mild feeling in as the area. Square it first. Then decide whether the area sentence is still the one you meant.
Not double, and not a length
About 696 thousand against about 552 thousand is the comparison this catalog allows. Texas is the larger land. France, in the metropolitan figure, is the smaller of these two, and the gap is not a doubling. Do not reach for a cleverer quotient than that sentence. Do not turn 695,662 or 551,695 into a drive, a border, or a diagonal. Those catalog numbers are areas. The rounded speech, 696 thousand and 552 thousand, is the same pair said so you can hold it. Either form is area. Neither form is a length of Texas or a length of France.
Half and double remain the same kind of miss when a round really is a ratio of 2, and that miss scores 45. Do not spend that sentence on this pair. Within 6 percent scores 100, which on an area round means your area ratio was already tight, not that your width feeling looked close. A ratio of 1.12 scores 90. A ratio of 1.2 scores 78. Four to three scores 62. Triple scores 30. Five times off scores 0. None of those marks is a licence to skip the square. A mild width and a wild area can share one careless lock-in.
Spain and California are areas too
Spain's land area in this catalog is 505,990 square kilometres, about 506 thousand. That figure is Spain's own. It is not a length of Spain, not a north-to-south reach, and not a way to smuggle Chile or Italy into an area round. If a country appears with an area label, do not answer with how long the country looks on a map. The map's long direction is a different axis, and this board will not score it against square kilometres. Say 506 thousand when you mean this Spain, and mean land area when you say it.
California's land area in this catalog is 423,970 square kilometres, about 424 thousand. That figure is California's own, a land area, not a drive from one end of the state to the other. Readers who treat every country and every state as a length will try to lay California beside Texas as if both were sticks. Texas in this note is not a stick. California in this note is not a stick. Both are areas. Keep Spain at about 506 thousand and California at about 424 thousand as area units, each with its own number, neither borrowed from a border.
Four lands, four area figures
Hold the four area figures as areas and nothing else. Texas, about 696 thousand square kilometres, catalog 695,662. Metropolitan France, about 552 thousand, catalog 551,695. Spain, 505,990, about 506 thousand. California, 423,970, about 424 thousand. Texas is larger than metropolitan France and not double. Spain is its own land, not a length wearing a country's name. California is its own land, not a highway. If a later round offers two of these, you already have the kind of size. You still have to say a ratio, and you still have to square a width feeling before you trust it.
The order of these four is not a ranking of importance. A larger land area is not a lesson in anything but area. The score, when you play a round, follows the area ratio after you lock in. Compare will show two true areas and no score if you only want the picture. The square-root drawing will be there in both places, and in both places the ratio that matters is the area ratio. Say the width you see. Square it. Then see whether you are still happy with the sentence. Larger, not double, is the sentence for Texas beside metropolitan France.
Lock in the area sentence
Today's answers stay closed until you finish or until you choose to look. Choosing to look spends the day. There is no account, and the result stays in this browser. Unlimited has no five-round weights and no streak, so you can drill area pairs without forging the shared puzzle. When you are on the five, the weights are one, one, two, three, and three. A perfect five is 1,000. An area round on a heavy weight is a bad place to lock in a width you forgot to square. The late rounds are where that habit costs three times what the first round costs.
A good miss on this shelf is still a spoken ratio of areas. I thought the width was about 1.2, and 1.2 squared is about 1.44, so I locked the area there. That is a sentence. France is smaller and Texas is huge is not a sentence the score can use. Huge is not a ratio. Double is a ratio, and it is the wrong one for 696 thousand against 552 thousand. The fact line names the version: land area, metropolitan France rather than some other France, the catalog figure rather than a coastline. Read it. Then square the next width before you commit.