How well do you know the US States?

[Mirage]

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/states_experiment_drag-drop_Intermed_State15s_500.html

See how fast you can get it, how accurate, and how many miles you are off.

You will see what I mean when you click the link.

My best attempt so far is:

98%
24 Miles error
274 Seconds

 

[Major]

I got 98% and 2 miles average error in 249 seconds on my first try. My only error was Kansas near the very beginning, I know exacty where it goes, it's just hard to place a state in the middle of the country into the perfect spot when nothing else is in place around it yet. I'm really good with geography, but a lot of this test is luck with the order you get the states.

 

[NewGamePlus]

Yeah, it's in large part luck. I restarted the first time because I got a couple of states that started in the "middle-of-nowhere-land" and then started off good because I got a string of border states. Theoretically, even a person with little knowledge of geography could get a perfect score if they get the right combination of obvious border states and continue to get states bordering those states until no difficult ones are left. I know it isn't fair to cheat the system like this, but the first question I ask myself when placing a state is "what is it against?" So unless the game could completely get rid of that factor somehow, it's not totally fair.

My scores:

84% 36 miles 398 sec

 

[Mirage]

And an even harder version where states disappear when you get them correct.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/USA_G5_drag-drop.html

My best attempt:

45/50
90%
33 miles average error
229 seconds

 

[Major]

That one is harder, but it's still pretty easy with all the rivers on the map. Also, when you make an error, that state stays on the map. The only two I missed were Utah and Arkansas. Missing Utah early really made Colorado and Wyoming easy to line up perfectly. I got lucky with some of the other rectangular states like South Dakota and Kansas. All the other states that don't have the square edges are easy to line up along rivers or coastline.

My first and only attempt (none of this "best" attempt crap)...

48/50
96%
6 miles average error
290 seconds

 

[NewGamePlus]

6 miles average error

I don't believe that. 6 miles is hardly even perceptible on the map. I could run six miles every day if I wanted to.

The only way I could see that happening is if they average down all the states when you make an error so that the 100% correctly placed states cause the few error miles to shrink absurdly smaller. I don't think they should count correct states in the average, because then it's not an "average error". It's just a general average. If you want to know only how much you were off by when you were off, then only error states matter.

 

[Major]

Yeah, it's the average of all 50 states. Correct guesses are basically registered as 0 miles error.