Viewers of The 1% Club were left scratching their heads after the ITV show’s final question sparked a wave of complaints, with some fans calling the puzzle “dodgy” and insisting that the answer made little sense.
Hosted by Lee Mack, the popular quiz puts 100 contestants through a series of increasingly difficult questions designed to test logic and common sense rather than general knowledge.
The competition begins with relatively accessible questions before progressing towards the notoriously difficult 1% question, which contestants have just 30 seconds to solve.
The ultimate prize can reach £100,000, making the final challenge particularly high-stakes.
The 1% Club left fans baffled on Saturday evening (Image: ITV)
Amena takes on the 1% question
In the episode broadcast on January 31, Amena was the only contestant left standing when the competition reached its final stage.
She had already secured £10,000 but chose to risk the money for the chance to win the much larger jackpot.
That decision left her facing a deceptively simple-looking puzzle involving three books.
The question showed three equally sized volumes from a cookery book series standing next to each other on a shelf.
Contestants were told that the pages in each book were 5cm thick and that each individual cover was 5mm thick.
Amena during the final of The 1% Club (Image: ITV)
The question then asked:
“What is the distance in centimetres between the first page of volume one and the last page of volume three?”
The 1% Club question left viewers baffled (Image: ITV)
Amena calculated the distance as 14.9cm.
However, her answer was marked incorrect. The programme gave the correct answer as 7cm.
Why the answer was 7cm
Lee Mack explained that the trick depended on understanding how books are positioned when they are standing upright on a shelf.
Because the first page of a book is on the right-hand side and the last page is on the left, the distance between the specified pages does not include all three books.
Instead, the calculation requires the pages of just one book, along with four book covers.
That produces the programme’s answer of 7cm.
The puzzle is the kind of deliberately deceptive question for which The 1% Club is known, but many viewers felt the wording and explanation were unnecessarily confusing.
A similar account of the episode said Amena’s 14.9cm answer was rejected and confirmed the show’s 7cm solution, while noting that the question prompted considerable discussion among viewers.
Viewers react to the “dodgy” question
Social media quickly filled with reactions after the episode aired.
One frustrated viewer described the final puzzle as a “bloody dodgy last question”.
Another wrote that the 1% question “makes no sense whatsoever”, while a third simply called it a classic trick question.
Others were equally unimpressed, with one viewer branding it “a proper stinker” and another admitting they would need someone to show them the workings before they could understand the answer.
The debate was not limited to whether the question was fair. Some viewers also questioned the calculation itself.
One person argued that the answer should be 5.2cm, reasoning that the distance should consist of one 5cm-thick book plus four 5mm covers, which they calculated as 0.2cm in total.
Another viewer was left wondering why the answer was not 17cm and asked other fans to explain the logic behind the result.
A question designed to catch people out
The confusion illustrates exactly why The 1% Club can be so difficult.
Rather than testing contestants on obscure facts, the show frequently presents familiar objects or situations in ways that encourage people to make an obvious assumption.
In this case, the challenge was not simply calculating the thickness of three books. The key was recognising which parts of the books actually sit between the first page of the first volume and the last page of the third.
For Amena, the decision to risk her £10,000 prize ultimately ended with the final puzzle proving too difficult.
The episode once again demonstrated how a seemingly straightforward image can become considerably more complicated once the wording is examined closely.
The 1% Club airs on Saturdays on ITV and is also available on ITVX.