A question from the US version of The 1% Club has left viewers in Britain scratching their heads, despite what some have described as an incredibly obvious answer.

The quiz show has become a familiar fixture on British television, so its arrival in the US was hardly surprising. While the American edition keeps the basic format of the original, it has been adapted for a US audience, with comedian Patton Oswalt taking over as host in the role occupied by Lee Mack in the UK.

The premise remains largely unchanged. Contestants face 15 questions that gradually increase in difficulty, with those who make it through to the end competing for a top prize of $100,000 (£79k).

One particular question from the US series has recently attracted attention online, after a clip showed contestants struggling with what appeared to be a straightforward sequence.

Can you spot the next month?

The question was presented as the 10% question, meaning only a relatively small proportion of people were expected to get it right.

Oswalt showed the contestants a sequence of months:

April, August, December, February, [blank]

They were then asked to work out which month should come next.

It sounds simple enough, but the question proved surprisingly difficult. Oswalt later revealed that the challenge had eliminated half of the contestants who were still in the game.

Viewers watching the clip online seemed to have similar trouble. The comments were filled with different guesses, with January, July and September among the answers suggested most frequently. Some people even debated how the sequence was supposed to be interpreted.

Eventually, after what felt like an unnecessarily long wait for the reveal, Oswalt gave the answer: January.

The months were arranged in alphabetical order:

April, August, December, February, January.

Some viewers couldn’t believe it

While many people were caught out by the question, others were baffled that anyone could have struggled with it.

One viewer, apparently a quizmaster, wrote: “How… how are there people saying anything other than January. Like… how??? This is insanely easy.”

Another commented: “How is the us one so easy,” while a third suggested that the same question would probably have been given a different difficulty rating in Britain.

“This would be 80% question in the UK,” they wrote.

The fact that half of the remaining contestants failed to identify January certainly made the question more memorable, even if some viewers considered it far too easy for its position in the game.

Brits can be caught out too

For anyone tempted to laugh at the American contestants, however, the UK version of The 1% Club has provided plenty of evidence that seemingly obvious questions can catch out large numbers of players.

During this year’s festive special, a simple spot-the-difference challenge eliminated 28 contestants.

Lee Mack was left momentarily speechless by the result.

“Wow,” was all he could manage before explaining what the contestants had missed: in one of the pictures, Santa Claus was missing his legs.

It might seem like the kind of difference that would immediately stand out, yet it was enough to eliminate almost a third of the participants.

So while the January question may have seemed painfully easy to some British viewers, the festive special offered a useful reminder that even the most obvious detail can become surprisingly difficult to spot when you’re under pressure in a quiz.