Instead of completing a brainteaser or sudoku puzzle to exercise your mind, why not just stick on The 1% Club and have a crack at one of their mind-boggling questions?
Tuning into the ITV game show is a sure-fire way to utilise your critical thinking skills on a Saturday night, although this conundrum might leave you tearing your hair out in frustration.
The show often has viewers yelling at the screen when contestants mess up seemingly simple questions or driving themselves loopy over near-impossible brain teasers.
Comedian Lee Mack is the ringmaster on The 1% Club who fires questions which focus on ‘logic and common sense’ rather than general knowledge at 100 contestants.
Those who manage to get through the different levels then have a chance of winning a share of up to £100,000 if they correctly answer a question which only one percent of the general public got right.
Simple enough, right?
Well apparently it’s not as easy as you might think when your victory is hinging on the outcome of a maths problem.
The 1% Club contestants Maisie and Alex were the only two left standing at the end of Saturday night’s (30 March) episode, after getting through the first rounds with flying colours.
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But when it came down to the final question, both of them floundered and were left wishing they had listened more in their maths lessons at school.
The pair were presented with a riddle that only Pythagoras would be able to work out with 30 seconds on the clock.
It read: “Given that: 0+100 =100, 1+99 = 100, 2+98 =100, what is the sum of all the whole numbers between zero and 100?”
Although a chunk of the £100,000 prize fund was just within their reach, both Maisie and Alex decided not to risk it and instead played it safe by opting to take home £5,000 each.
The discombobulated duo did hazard a guess at the correct answer though, asking Mack whether it was 5000 – although they were sadly incorrect.
ITV
Maisie and Alex shouldn’t be too disheartened about their miscalculation though, as viewers watching at home admitted they were just as stumped by the conundrum, with one pleading: “Help me understand???”
One social media user said: “This is possibly the hardest 1% question I’ve come across. I would even consider it a 0.1% question.”
Another moaned: “The number ones always get me!”
A third added: “I didn’t get it. Gutted.”
And a fourth wrote: “I didn’t even try with that one. Maths is hard enough on a calculator for me, never mind doing it in my head in 30 seconds.”
Mack revealed that Maisie and Alex weren’t far off, while explaining how they could have worked it out.
ITV
Mack said: “There are 50 pairs that total 100 (0 and 100, 1 and 99, 2 and 98, etc). That makes 5000, but there is also the number 50 in the middle.
“That is not in a pair but also needs to be counted, giving a total of 5050.”
Yep, I never would have got that either.
The hardest 1% Club questions ever
That one too easy for you? Here’s a list of some of the hardest ever questions contestants on The 1% Club have faced:
What is the first number that when spelled out has its letters in alphabetical order?
If January equals 717, March equals 5315 and June equals 4624, then what does August equal?
Lee was driving when he noticed his milometer read 16961 and was the same backwards and forwards. What will the next mileage be that also reads the same backwards and forwards?
Into, Therefore, Evaluate, Benign. All of the words have something in common. Can you work out what it is? A bat and a ball cost £1.10 in total. The bat costs £1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
