Guide
How to guess distances and heights
Distances and heights are the most common questions in Catamount, and the easiest to get good at. They reward a small ladder of benchmarks that you can compare against.
Build a ladder of heights
Memorize a short ladder, from human scale up to the top of the world. Most heights in the game sit somewhere on it.
| Thing | Height |
|---|---|
| A person | About 5.5 to 6 feet |
| A typical house (two stories) | About 25 to 30 feet |
| Statue of Liberty, ground to torch | About 305 feet |
| Washington Monument | 555 feet |
| Eiffel Tower | About 1,080 feet |
| Burj Khalifa | About 2,717 feet |
| Cruising altitude of a jetliner | About 35,000 feet |
| Mount Everest | About 29,000 feet |
For a question about a bridge tower, a waterfall or a dam, find the rung it most resembles and move up or down. Waterfalls, in particular, are rarely taller than a few hundred feet apart from a handful of famous ones.
Straight line versus road
When a question says "as the crow flies" or "in a straight line", it means the great-circle distance, the shortest path over the Earth's curved surface. Driving distance is almost always longer, often by 20 percent or more, and sometimes by far more when mountains, lakes or borders get in the way. If you only know the driving distance, reduce it a bit. If you only know the flight time, multiply by 500 or so miles per hour for the cruising portion and add a little for takeoff and landing.
A few distances worth knowing by heart: New York to Los Angeles is about 2,445 miles in a straight line, London to Tokyo is about 5,940 miles, and the Moon is on average about 238,855 miles from Earth, which is almost ten times the distance around the Earth at the equator.
Remember the Earth is round, and not that big
Nowhere on Earth is farther than about half the circumference, roughly 12,450 miles, from any other point. If you find yourself guessing a distance between two cities of 15,000 miles, something is wrong. Two cities on opposite sides of the planet are close to that maximum, and most intercontinental pairs are somewhere between 3,000 and 9,000 miles.
Wingspans, depths and sizes
Questions about aircraft, ships and ocean depths use the same ladder idea. A small bush plane has a wingspan of a few dozen feet, a regional jet about 80 to 100, a big widebody jet 200 feet or more. The ocean's average depth is a couple of miles, and its deepest point is about 36,000 feet, deeper than Everest is tall.
Check the unit
The unit is printed next to the keypad. Distances in miles, heights in feet, and a few things in inches or acres. A height in feet that you imagined in meters is a mistake that costs a factor of 3.3. If you think in metric, convert before you type.