Complete newbie...just don't get it

I'm coming back to the very beginning of Syntorial, having had a Winter layoff. The first thing I encountered was an update required, so I did that.
I got through the first "Saw & Pulse Waveforms" OK. But when I moved on to the "Pulse Width" challenge I became totally lost. I listened to each example then sampled each possible sound/width to match what was playing. BUT, as I went through the various options (Saw/Pulse/Width) the sound of the example changed to match the option I was trying. So I couldn't do a comparison, because the 'recorded' sound now matched the sound I was 'sampling'. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for your anticipated assistance.