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Beet could be the best answer if you're confused over whether a pumpkin is a fruit or a vegetable. That was the question I asked myself before settling on A.

Easy: redwood is to maple as [blown up thing] is to [normal sized thing roughly the same shape], so it's pumpkin to beet because both pumpkins and beets are kind of roundish, but pumpkins are bigger. Pineapple's no good because pineapples aren't systematically bigger than pumpkins.

I thought about a size comparison, but sugar beets can easily be larger than the small pumpkins kids here often get for Halloween (which are bred-down tiny pumpkins, not baby normal-size pumpkins).

I think you're probably right, though, that the author was going for size. That's a pretty obscure item of similarity.

LOL! I am totally failing at finding a justification to pick birch...

I would have picked pineapple ("fruits! did you know that tomatoes are fruits too??") when I was her age. Now that I know how this stuff work I am guessing that the "correct" (ie. "man on the street") answer is pumpkin -- stuff that gets labeled as veggies at the school cafeteria.

Yes, the book says beet is the correct answer! But--right! Pineapple is a fruit, like a pumpkin! To DD's credit, she realized she was being led astray by the desire to be botanically accurate.

And it is considered a "same class" analogy--the book specifies. I severely doubt that size was part of the answer. You are all a bunch of cute gifted overthinkers, btw.

But nobody eats pumpkin as a vegetable / savory! Butternut squash, I could see lumped with beets. But pumpkin doesn't get served the same way.

Soup making materials. Want my recipes for Botsch and Potage de Courge?

I know! Maple and redwood are milled for planks. Pumpkin and birches are carved for decorative effects!

So my answer is birch

They do here!

You win the thread :-)

ETA although I do still want to know how you complete the explanation: the relationship between (the things that are milled for planks) redwood and maple is _ and the same relationship applies between (the things that are carved for decorative effect) pumpkin and birch because _ ?