How does an increase in the height of the refracting region affect skip distance?

The relationship between the height of the ionospheric layer and the skip distance is a simple matter of geometry. If you visualize the signal path as a triangle where the transmitter and receiver form the base, raising the height of the peak (the refracting region) forces the signal to travel further out before returning to Earth. Therefore, when a radio wave is refracted by a higher layer (such as the F2 layer) instead of a lower layer (like the E layer), the resulting skip distance is significantly longer, assuming the takeoff angle remains the same. Options mentioning "critical frequency" are incorrect in this context because critical frequency determines whether a signal will pass through the ionosphere or be refracted back, but it is the physical height of the reflection that geometrically extends the distance.