Answer
This is a hands-on demonstration. Try it and see!
The coin hits the ground before the flat sheet of paper.
When the paper is crumpled, it falls at about the same speed as the coin because the air resistance on the paper is much reduced due to its smaller frontal area.
From a very high starting point, the coin hits first. It still has less frontal area than the crumpled paper so it encounters slightly less air resistance. The longer "race" magnifies the small difference between the coin and the crumpled paper.
This is discussed on page 67.
Work Step by Step
This is a hands-on demonstration. Try it and see!
The coin reaches the ground first.
This happens because air resistance depends on the speed of the object's motion as well as its frontal area. When the paper is crumbled the frontal area decreases and so does air resistance on the object, which means the paper and coin reach the floor about the same time. However, if thrown from the 4th floor, as the coin has more mass it will take longer to reach its terminal velocity and consequently have, during the time interval of the fall, more time accelerating, which means it will have a higher terminal velocity as well and fall first on the floor.
