Test 1 (Yellow) - Two items in an inline list, no positioning. The two items should appear side by side, more or less within the outlined div. [In all three tests, the height of the div seems to be taken from the <li> elements].
Test 2 (Pink) - Same items, absolute positioned within their containing div (which is relatively positioned to make it their 'positioned ancestor', but is not moved from its default position). The two items should appear in the upper left and upper right corners of their outlined div.
Test 3 (Green) - Same items, fixed positioned. The two items should appear in the upper left and upper right corners of the viewport.
In all cases, since positioning was specified for, at most, two adjacent sides, the size of the <a> elements (the black-outlined boxes) containing the same text should be the same.