The 1% Club viewers left baffled by ‘confusing’ final question — while others called it the ‘easiest’ one yet

Mack was in top form (ITV)

Viewers of The 1% Club were left divided after a deceptively simple final question sent contestants scrambling to count every hidden number in a short paragraph.

The ITV quiz show, hosted by Lee Mack, challenges 100 contestants with increasingly difficult questions, with the final 1% question designed to test logic rather than general knowledge.

In the episode, five contestants made it all the way to the final round, with the group deciding to play for the full £97,000 prize pot.

But the last question had viewers at home reaching for their screens.

The question that caused confusion

Emma found the whole ordeal rather amusing (ITV)

Contestants were shown a paragraph that read:

“Everyone! Pay attention and listen up. Focus in these frightening and lonely thirty seconds. In this whole paragraph, how many times in total is the name of a number written down?”

The challenge was to identify every occasion where a number’s name appeared within the text.

The correct answer given on the show was seven.

Four of the five finalists, including Emma, successfully reached that answer and ultimately shared the prize, taking home £24,250 each.

But some viewers weren’t convinced the question was quite as straightforward as it appeared.

One viewer pointed out that the word “second” could potentially be interpreted as an ordinal number, suggesting the answer might actually be eight depending on how the wording was understood.

Another admitted they had completely miscounted, blaming the difficulty on having just returned from a Christmas work party.

Others spotted the trick almost immediately

(ITV)

Not everyone struggled with the puzzle.

Several viewers insisted it was actually one of the easiest 1% questions they had seen.

One viewer explained their calculation, saying the paragraph contained four instances of “ten,” two of “one” and one “thirty,” producing the show’s answer of seven.

Another contestant-style observation noted that they had initially missed one of the hidden number references but still reached seven by spotting another cleverly disguised number.

That’s exactly what makes The 1% Club so tricky: the questions often aren’t testing what contestants know, but how carefully they read the wording in front of them.

And this particular puzzle certainly proved that even a paragraph containing only a handful of words can cause plenty of debate.

For the four contestants who got it right, however, the confusion was worth it — £24,250 each was waiting at the end of the round.