The 1% Club: Lee Mack stunned as record 46 contestants pass on tricky word question

A seemingly simple word puzzle left contestants on The 1% Club struggling for an answer, with a record 46 players choosing to use their pass rather than risk getting it wrong.

Host Lee Mack was visibly surprised when he revealed the number during the ITV quiz show. With another seven contestants also answering incorrectly, more than half of the players failed to find the correct solution.

Could you solve the word puzzle in 30 seconds?

The question presented to the contestants was:

“Which of these words can have two of its letters swapped over and still result in a valid word?”

Three answers appeared on the screen:

• Conversation
• Dialogue
• Chat

Contestants had just 30 seconds to work out which word could be transformed into another valid word by switching the positions of two letters.

For many of the players, that proved to be much harder than it looked.

According to reports on the episode, 46 contestants decided to use their pass, while another seven got the question wrong.

That meant more than half of the contestants failed to produce the correct answer.

The answer was Conversation

When the time was up, Lee Mack revealed that the correct choice was Conversation.

The trick was hidden in two of the letters. By swapping the positions of the V and S, the word becomes Conservation, which is also a valid word.

So:

Conversation → Conservation

The solution prompted a strong reaction from the contestants, particularly when Mack revealed just how many people had decided to pass.

He told them: “Now, you’ve just broken a record you lot, because, between you, you have just used 46 passes!”

An audible gasp followed as the players took in the number.

The question was another example of the type of challenge The 1% Club is known for, where familiar words and numbers can become surprisingly difficult when contestants have only seconds to spot the underlying pattern.

Another question eliminated 16 players

The word puzzle came shortly after another difficult challenge had already caused a major shake-up among the contestants.

This time, players were given a question involving the visible faces of dice.

They were asked:

“Using only the faces of the dice you can see and each of them just once, how many different ways can you add them together to make a total of ten?”

The dice showed the numbers one through five, with the number six absent. Contestants again had 30 seconds to work through the possible combinations.

When the clock ran out, 16 players had answered incorrectly and were eliminated.

The correct answer was three, with only three combinations satisfying the rules:

• 5 + 4 + 1 = 10
• 5 + 3 + 2 = 10
• 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10

Lee Mack explained that these were the only possible ways to reach 10 using the available numbers and using each number no more than once.

The pressure continues as players are whittled down

The two puzzles demonstrated how quickly the field can shrink on The 1% Club.

The word question saw 46 contestants use their pass and another seven give an incorrect answer. The dice challenge, meanwhile, eliminated 16 players in a single round.

For those still competing, every question brings the same 30-second pressure, with seemingly straightforward puzzles requiring contestants to spot a precise relationship between words, letters or numbers.

That makes the correct answer to the record-breaking word question particularly easy to miss. At first glance, Conversation, Dialogue and Chat all appear to be ordinary words. The key is recognising that changing just two letters in Conversation produces another legitimate word: Conservation.

So, if you were sitting alongside the contestants with 30 seconds on the clock, the answer was Conversation.