Varchar Only Up To 256 Characters?

When I run the code below, SELECT LEN(@mytext) prints 300 as expected.
Yet SELECT @mytext only prints the first 256 characters.

Isn't varchar supposed to have up to 8000? Is there something from the
discrete math class I am forgetting here? Sorry, that was over 10 years
ago.

DECLARE @mytext varchar(500)

SELECT @mytext = '1111111111'
select @mytext = @mytext + '2222222222'
select @mytext = @mytext + '3333333333'
select @mytext = @mytext + '4444444444'
select @mytext = @mytext + '5555555555'
select @mytext = @mytext + '6666666666'
select @mytext = @mytext + '7777777777'
select @mytext = @mytext + '8888888888'
select @mytext = @mytext + '9999999999'
select @mytext = @mytext + '0000000000'

select @mytext = @mytext + '1111111111'
select @mytext = @mytext + '2222222222'
select @mytext = @mytext + '3333333333'
select @mytext = @mytext + '4444444444'
select @mytext = @mytext + '5555555555'
select @mytext = @mytext + '6666666666'
select @mytext = @mytext + '7777777777'
select @mytext = @mytext + '8888888888'
select @mytext = @mytext + '9999999999'
select @mytext = @mytext + '0000000000'

select @mytext = @mytext + '1111111111'
select @mytext = @mytext + '2222222222'
select @mytext = @mytext + '3333333333'
select @mytext = @mytext + '444444444'
select @mytext = @mytext + '5555555555'
select @mytext = @mytext + '6666666666'
select @mytext = @mytext + '7777777777'
select @mytext = @mytext + '8888888888'
select @mytext = @mytext + '9999999999'
select @mytext = @mytext + '0000000000'

SELECT LEN(@mytext)
SELECT @mytext


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