The 1% Club players stumped by deceptively difficult word riddle

Could you solve it in just 30 seconds? The answer looks surprisingly simple once the trick is revealed.

Contestants on The 1% Club were given only 30 seconds to solve a deceptively simple five-letter word puzzle, but the question proved difficult enough to send players out of the competition.

The episode featured 100 contestants hoping to reach the coveted 1% question and earn a chance to win a share of the jackpot.

The five-letter puzzle that caught players out

The troublesome question came at the 5% stage of the show, when host Lee Mack presented contestants with a wordplay challenge.

The question asked:

There is a five-letter word where if you remove the first letter a bit remains. If you remove the second letter that bit is still there and if you take away the third letter it continues to be in place. What is the word?

Contestants had just 30 seconds to work out the answer.

When time was up, two players had been eliminated, ending their hopes of progressing to the final question and competing for a share of the jackpot.

The answer was hidden in the word itself

Lee eventually revealed that the answer was Habit.

The trick becomes much clearer once the letters are removed one at a time.

Take away the first letter of Habit and you are left with a bit.

Remove the second letter and it becomes bit.

Take away the third letter and what remains is it.

So the sequence is:

Habit → a bit → bit → it

It is the kind of answer that seems obvious once explained, but finding the connection under a 30-second time limit proved much harder for the contestants who were eliminated.

Another question eliminated 23 contestants

The word puzzle was not the only difficult challenge in the episode.

In the latest Saturday episode, another question caused an even bigger shake-up, with 23 contestants knocked out in a single round.

Lee asked:

Including the word “and”, what is the only number out of the numbers below that uses every vowel exactly once when spelt out?

The three choices were 107, 206 and 305.

Lee joked: “Take as long as you need… as long as the time you need is 30 seconds.”

The correct answer was 206.

Written out as two hundred and six, the number uses every vowel exactly once, including the word “and”.

Eight more players were eliminated by a symbol puzzle

Later in the show, contestants faced another brain teaser at the 15% stage.

This time, the challenge involved groups of six symbols.

Lee asked:

Which of these groups of six symbols are in the same order whether you read them from left to right or right to left?

He joked that the symbols were “basically what we had to use before emojis.”

The correct answer was C.

The question proved costly, with eight players eliminated.

They were only three questions away from the 1% question and the chance to compete for the jackpot.

A show built around logic rather than general knowledge

The three questions demonstrated the type of puzzles that contestants face on The 1% Club, where success depends on spotting patterns and making connections rather than relying on traditional general knowledge.

For the players who missed the word riddle, the solution may have looked simple after Lee explained it. But with only 30 seconds to identify the relationship between Habit, a bit, bit and it, there was little room for hesitation.

The 1% Club is available to watch on Saturdays on ITV1 and ITVX.