The 1% Club baffles contestants with tricky arrows puzzle: could you solve it in 30 seconds?

A deceptively simple arrows puzzle left contestants on The 1% Club struggling to work out the answer before the 30-second countdown expired.

The visual brain teaser appeared as a 45% question on the ITV quiz show, where contestants are tested on logic and common sense rather than traditional general knowledge. The challenge looked straightforward at first, but the instruction to rotate the image 90 degrees clockwise was enough to throw several players off.

Could you solve the arrows puzzle?

Host Lee Mack presented the contestants with an image containing arrows pointing in different directions.

The question was:

If you turn this image 90 degrees clockwise, how many arrows will be pointing to the right?

Players had only 30 seconds to study the image, mentally rotate it and select their answer.

As the clock counted down, Mack added some humour to the tense moment, joking: “This is like when my nan used to do a three-point turn.”

The pressure proved too much for two contestants, who gave the wrong answer and were eliminated.

At that point, 18 contestants remained in the game, with the jackpot standing at £87,000.

The answer is 2

The trick is to think about where each arrow will end up after the entire image is rotated, rather than simply counting the arrows that appear to be pointing right in the original picture.

Mack explained that because the image was being turned 90 degrees clockwise, the arrows that originally pointed up would be the ones pointing right after the rotation.

There were two such arrows.

So the correct answer was:

2

The puzzle was therefore less about complicated mathematics and more about visualising the change in direction accurately while working against the clock.

What makes The 1% Club so difficult?

The 1% Club has become known for puzzles that test reasoning, observation and common sense rather than how much general knowledge contestants can recall. ITV describes the format as a competition in which 100 contestants attempt to progress through increasingly difficult questions, with the ultimate aim of answering a question that only 1% of the country would get right.

That format means a question can look incredibly basic while still catching out a large number of players.

The arrows challenge is a good example. There is no specialist knowledge needed to solve it. The difficulty comes from interpreting the instruction correctly and mentally carrying out the rotation before the time runs out.

It is also far from the first time contestants have been caught out by a seemingly simple question on the show.

The Soccer Aid special

The programme also featured a special edition connected to Soccer Aid for UNICEF, with 100 celebrities and sports stars taking part. ITV confirmed the one-off special was hosted by Lee Mack and brought together stars from sport and entertainment to compete while raising funds for UNICEF.

The celebrity line-up included Jill Scott, Iain Stirling, Paddy McGuinness, Tommy Fury, Tony Bellew and Chris Hughes, among others.

The contestants were competing for the chance to raise as much as £100,000 for UNICEF.

By the final 1% question, only two contestants remained: former footballer Clarke Carlisle and comedian and former Soccer AM host Lloyd Griffith.

Carlisle, who played for QPR, Watford and Leeds, eventually went on to answer the final question correctly and win the £100,000 prize for UNICEF. Leeds United also confirmed his victory following the special.

The final question concerned the opening verse of the original version of Three Lions, asking which two words appeared exactly three times. Carlisle correctly identified “it” and “know”.

Would you have got the arrows question right?

The arrows puzzle may have appeared much earlier in the difficulty scale than the final 1% challenge, but it still demonstrated why The 1% Club can catch even confident contestants off guard.

With only 30 seconds on the clock, the key was to ignore the apparent complexity of the picture and focus on one simple rule: after a 90-degree clockwise rotation, an arrow pointing up becomes an arrow pointing right.

That leaves two arrows pointing in the required direction.

The 1% Club airs on ITV1 and ITVX. The Soccer Aid special is also available through ITVX.