The 1% Club, 15th April 2023.

The Highlander

The Highlander

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The 1% Club is back for another series. (Yay! )​

For anyone not familiar with this show (new members?), it presents a series of logic puzzles that have been “tested” on members of the public to determine what percentage of ('ordinary') people can solve them. They are then ‘ranked’ in difficulty from those that 90% of the public (statistically) are 'able' to solve right up to those that only 1% can answer.

For the benefit of those that don’t live in the UK or who can’t watch the show on ‘catch up’ or on a streaming service, I have posted a selected few of the puzzles in the forum. Nobody’s obliged to attempt them or even read on if you’re not interested but quite a few members seemed to enjoy the ones I posted from the first series (season for our American friends ?).

Personally, I have adopted a new ‘system’ for watching the show. Having recorded it I then pause the show when each puzzle appears and start my own timer. I am only going to post those puzzles that I was unable to solve within the time limit as, clearly, if I could get them in under 30 seconds, then they are far too easy for the big brains in here! ??
For example, I got the (other) "numbers" question within 3 seconds; just too easy for anyone here!

The (show’s) rules are:-
Participants are allowed only 30 seconds to come up with an answer, however, since the presenter reveals and then reads out the question before the timer starts, it is reasonable to allow yourself 35 seconds after you click on the ‘Reveal’ button.

My ‘rule’ is (please respect it):-
Please do not post any answers (even under “Spoilers”) to the puzzles in this thread before I have posted the correct solutions!

I will post the answers in a day or so for everyone to 'see' at the same time.

However, do feel free to post whether (or not) you got an answer and, ideally, whether you did so within (my) 35 second time limit.
Alternatively, you might wait until the correct answers are posted (to confirm whether yours agreed with them) and then let us know how you ‘performed’.

It’s just a bit of fun so it’s taken on trust that everyone will obey the rules (including mine) and be ‘honest’ about how they ‘scored’; we all know you don’t fool anyone but yourself if you lie about this kind of thing.

Again, for the benefit of anyone who is ‘new’ to this, I will begin by posting a “Sample Question”. In the early episodes they used to show these at the beginning to give viewers an idea of how the show ‘worked’. However, they were usually quite difficult and they stopped showing them after a few episodes. (Makes me wonder if their difficulty put off a few people from watching the rest of the show if they were stumped by these examples? Or maybe they just didn't want to 'waste' good puzzles that could be used in the main part of the show?)

If anyone wants to have a look at some of the previous shows’ questions, just click on the “Search” button (alongside your name up above), tick the “Search titles only” box and enter: “1% Club” as your search string.

Anyway, here we go…. Enjoy!

Example Question: (Part of the early shows’ introductions.):-
(Remember: time yourself to see if you can get it within 35 seconds of revealing the question.)

Example-Q.png

And the answer was:-
Answer.JPG

OK?​
So this week’s (selected) questions are:-

The 70% Question:-
(It took me nearly a minute to ‘spot’ the answer on this one!)

70.png
​

The 25% Question:-
(This one just beat me: 37 seconds to get it.)

25.png
​

The 15% Question:-
(Again, I was just out of time; 45 seconds had passed before I realized what the ‘key’ to solving it was!)

15.png
​

The 5% Question:-
(I struggled for over five minutes on this one exhausting all the ‘possibilities’ I could think of before finally seeing what the answer was!)

5.png
​


This week’s 1% question was (IMNSHO) only answerable if you were ‘lucky’ enough to ‘visualise’ it right away. I spent over 10 minutes going through all the possible letter combinations before I finally hit on the answer!

The winning contestant was wise enough to settle for the £10,000 he was already ‘due’ for reaching the final stage (as the only one who had answered all the previous questions correctly within the 30s time limit) as he too was completely unable to come up with an answer within the 30s. One other member of the audience claimed that he got it within the time limit (though this was now a couple of minutes after the question had been displayed) but he did, indeed, provide the right answer before it was revealed.

The 1% Question:-

1.png
​


I hope you had fun attempting the puzzles and feel free to let us all know how you got on (if you wish) but please do not post (correct or otherwise) any ‘answers’, even “hidden” under a "Spoiler”, until after I have posted the ‘solutions’ myself later this week. Whether you got an answer and in what time it took you will suffice (for now).

Cheers,
B. ?
 
Steven G said:
I can't do any. Does that mean I lose?
Click to expand...
Of course not, Steven, there are no "winners" or "losers" in this thread!

Like the TV show itself, it is simply entertainment. If you don't 'enjoy' it, then don't subject yourself to it (unless you are a masochist ?) but I suspect many in here do enjoy taxing their logic under 'pressure' and find it 'useful' to have some kind of 'measure' as to how well they can 'perform' under such pressure; that's why I go to the bother (and it is quite an onerous task) of capturing and presenting these puzzles). ?

However, despite being loth to accuse any member (especially one of your standing) of lying, I suspect you are not being wholly truthful when you claim you couldn't "do any"! Perhaps for comic effect?

But that 'face' you sport (over on the left) shows absolutely no trace of any sense of humour, so my fear is that some may take you at your word and think: "What? He couldn't do any of these? He really can't be that bright! Wtf is he doing teaching us Maths then?".

And that really would be a loss! ??
 
I got the first four within 35 seconds (well, the first two took 35.something, counting a fumble on the stop button, so I guess I didn't really win them); the 1% question took me 74 seconds.

There is certainly an element of chance in whether you start thinking in the right general direction. I'm not sure that "logic" is the right word to use.

The Highlander said:
I suspect many in here do enjoy taxing their logic under 'pressure' and find it 'useful' to have some kind of 'measure' as to how well they can 'perform' under such pressure; that's why I go to the bother (and it is quite an onerous task) of capturing and presenting these puzzles).
Click to expand...
Thanks for making the effort. It's true that I often tell my students that my definition of "fun" is "challenging".
 
Dr.Peterson said:
I got the first four within 35 seconds (well, the first two took 35.something, counting a fumble on the stop button, so I guess I didn't really win them); the 1% question took me 74 seconds.

There is certainly an element of chance in whether you start thinking in the right general direction. I'm not sure that "logic" is the right word to use.


Thanks for making the effort. It's true that I often tell my students that my definition of "fun" is "challenging".
Click to expand...
Well done, Dr.P! ?

And thank you for your (positive) reply. ?

You’re right , of course, that there is a strong element of ‘luck’ in solving some of these puzzles and ‘success’ (especially within the time limit) is often very much dependent on what ‘approach’ one adopts on tackling them!

On the 1% problem I took the wrong approach by considering possible letter pairs; discounting two vowels immediately (as I couldn't countenance any three-vowel ending ?) then running through one vowel (as one was imperative) plus the other letters of the alphabet in turn was extremely time consuming (and I missed the correct combination on my first run because I was rushing!) so it was only when I abandoned that tactic and changed to the “right” approach, ie: guessing the ‘ending’ that it finally dawned on me what the word must be. Doh! ?‍♂️?

Glad you enjoyed it, nonetheless, despite its lack of mathematical rigour. ?
 
OK, so here are the answers, for “confirmation” in the case of those who got them (within or outwith the time limit) and “revelation” for those who didn’t or couldn’t (Steven? ?).

I considered removing the question screens and replacing them with just the answer screens or just removing the ‘Spoiler’ tags from the questions so they were freely displayed followed by the answers under a Spoiler button.

However, it occurred to me that seeing this post might be some people’s first visit to the thread and they might wish to ‘test’ themselves against the questions (like they were reading the first post in the thread).

Therefore, I have left the question screens intact (under a Spoiler) and simply inserted the answer screens immediately after them, also hidden under Spoiler buttons.

Again, for the benefit of anyone visiting the thread for the first time, I will repeat the “rules” for attempting the problems.

The (show’s) rules are:-
Participants are allowed only 30 seconds to come up with an answer, however, since the presenter reveals and then reads out the question before the timer starts, it is reasonable to allow yourself 35 seconds after you click on the ‘Reveal’ button.

My, additional, ‘rule’ (about not posting any answers) no longer applies, of course, so members can feel free to post whatever they like in the thread henceforth.

However, since the “official” answers are now posted herein, I can’t see there’s much point in anyone posting their own answers unless their answer was different, right (in their opinion) or wrong, from the one included here.

Notwithstanding that, members are, of course, encouraged to post how they got on, if they ‘tackled’ the quiz, by letting us know which questions they got the right answer to (within or outwith) the 35s time limit or which completely stumped them!

So, here are this week’s (selected) questions once again, now followed by the answers …

The 70% Question:-
(It took me nearly a minute to ‘spot’ the answer on this one!)

70.png
​
70-A.png
​

The 25% Question:-    (I have no idea why the 'system' won't allow me to make this heading BOLD! ?)
(This one just beat me: 37 seconds to get it!)
25.png
25-A.png


The 15% Question:-
(Again, I was just out of time; 45 seconds had passed before I realized what the ‘key’ to solving it was!)

15.png
​
15-A.png

The 5% Question:-
(I struggled for over five minutes on this one exhausting all the ‘possibilities’ I could think of before finally seeing what the answer was!)

5.png
​
5-A.png


The 1% Question:-
(It took me over 10 minutes to finally get the answer to his one but, clearly, I had adopted completely the wrong strategy to solve it!)

1.png
​
1-A.png

This week’s 1% question was (IMNSHO) only possible to get within the time limits if you were ‘lucky’ enough to ‘guess’ the correct ending right away. ?‍♂️

I hope you had fun attempting the puzzles and feel free to let us all know how you got on (if you wish).

Cheers,
B. ?
 
I did get the one with the 26 houses. Because of a former address I lived at I know that N is the 14th letter in the alphabet. This really helped me.
 
Steven G said:
I did get the one with the 26 houses. Because of a former address I lived at I know that N is the 14th letter in the alphabet. This really helped me.
Click to expand...
I suspected right away that it involved a correspondence between the alphabet and each letter's numerical position in it because Bea started with a B and was at number 2 but it was only when I said the names out loud that I realized that Em sounded like M despite beginning with an E (and Elle like L) that the answer became immediately obvious; that's why I failed to get it in the time limit. Doh!
 
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