How to draw Madagascar from memory

A four-step strategy for Madagascar

1. 01

   Start with a tall, narrow mental guide box. Madagascar is much taller than it is wide, and squashing it is the single most common mistake.

2. 02

   Anchor one unmistakable feature — the straightest border section or the sharpest cape — and draw outward from it in a single continuous stroke.

3. 03

   Close the loop back to where you started. An open shape gets filled unpredictably and drags your score down.

4. 04

   Submit, read the nine-sector grid, and redraw immediately. The sector readout names the region you under-drew, and a second attempt typically gains 10–20 points.

Why Madagascar is scored this way

Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of Madagascar. It scales and centres both your stroke and the real border into the same box, fills them, and measures how much of the two shapes overlap relative to their combined area. That means you are never punished for drawing Madagascar small, off to one side, or rotated slightly — only for getting the shape itself wrong. The nine-sector grid then splits the real border into a 3×3 mesh and reports coverage per cell, which is how it can tell you that you lost the whole eastern edge rather than just handing you a number.