Only 1% of adults can answer these 10 simple questions correctly

A few questions look quite easy when you first see them, and that’s probably why they become much harder once you actually try answering them.

The letters hiding a weekly routine

This question starts simple enough. What comes next in the sequence ‘SUMOTUWETHFRS?’ The answer here is ‘A.’ You’re probably staring at the letters as one giant sequence, when really, you should look at them individually.

They’re the first two letters of the weekdays. SU is Sunday, MO is Monday, TU is Tuesday, and so on. FR is Friday, and that leaves S_ for Saturday, and that missing second letter has to be A. It’s a question you really have to look at carefully to figure out.

Three letters at a time

Here’s another confusing sequence. What comes after ‘ZER OON ETW OTH?’ It’s not as difficult as it seems, just remove the spaces, and you’ll find it way easier. You get ZEROONETWOTH, and that’s simply ZERO ONE TWO, and TH pushed together.

Put the spaces back every three letters, and you’ll see ZER, OON, ETW, OTH. The answer is REE, because it completes the word THREE.

The numbers aren’t calculations

If ONE equals 12, EIGHT equals 32, TEN equals 21, and TWELVE = 42, what does SEVENTEEN equal? The trick here has nothing to do with math at all, actually. Look closely at the letters. The first digit counts consonants and the second counts vowels. 

ONE has one consonant and two vowels, so that counts as 12. EIGHT has three consonants and two vowels, which is 32. SEVENTEEN has five consonants, S, V, N, T, N, and four vowels, all Es. That means the answer is 54.

One month survives every clue

Last month wasn’t May or July. Next month isn’t January, March, or November. Neither the previous nor following month is April, August, or December. So the question is, what is it now? You’ve got all the information you need right there in the question.

It’s April. Think about it. The month before it is March, and the month after it is May. It’s nowhere near August or December, covering the final clue. You could try testing the other months one at a time, but they eventually fail somewhere, and April is the only one left.

The Moon total is larger than two

We’ve looked at a lot of sequence and word puzzles. Now it’s time for a trivia one. How many people have walked on the Moon? Most people know about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, that’s two people alone. But the total is a lot higher than two. 

Astronauts walked on the Moon during Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. There were two moonwalkers on each mission, and some simple math brings the number to 12. There would’ve been more if Apollo 13 had gone to plan.

One letter belongs with the others

The next question is one that you’ll benefit from saying out loud to get the answer. What letter is missing from B, C, D, E, G, P, T, Z? Forget how the letters are shaped or any words with them. Just say them. Bee, cee, dee, ee, gee, pee, tee, zee. 

You might notice that they all finish with the same long ‘ee’ sound, and the only missing letter that also has that sound is ‘V.’ It sounds like ‘Vee’. It’s a question that only works in America because we say ‘zee’ for Z. The Brits say ‘zed’ instead.

Losing one person isn’t enough

Don’t go for the obvious answer for this one. In a room of 100 people, 99 are left-handed. How many left-handed people must leave for the room to become 98% left-handed? You might be tempted to think the answer is one because 99% becoming 98% sounds like you’ve only dropped one person. 

Except, percentages don’t work that way here, and if one left-handed person leaves, 98 of the remaining 99 people are left-handed. That works out to be around 98.99%. One right-handed person must represent 2% of the room to get exactly 98%, and that means 50 people need to leave. 49 lefties and one right-handed person are left behind.

Two clues make one familiar saying

What phrase is represented by ‘SPRAINED ANKLE + YOU ARE STUPID?’ It’s easier than you think, just imagine another way to say each of those phrases. A sprained ankle is a kind of injury, while saying ‘YOU ARE STUPID’ is an insult.

Put the two together, and you’re quite literally adding insult to an injury. That’s the answer. The puzzle seems more complicated than it actually is because you probably see the expression as a whole. But no, break it down into pieces, and the answer becomes clear.

The calendar does more work than it seems

Someone takes a tablet on every weekday with a name that contains three vowels. They start a 10-tablet pack on Saturday, March 2. When will the next pack begin? Pay attention to the weekday names, not just the dates, and you’ll get the answer.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday are the only ones with three vowels. The puzzle tells us March 2 is a Saturday. So, the doses fall on March 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, and 23. They’ll need to pick up a new pack three days later, on March 26. What a complicated calendar.

The multiplication sign is really a letter

Time for another sequence. What comes next? TEXT means MESSAGE, TOXIN means POISON, so E + X + __ means LEAVE. You might think that this is an algebra problem, but no, it’s not. Look at the letters. TE + X + T gives TEXT, and TO + X + IN gives TOXIN. 

That should make the last part a lot easier. You’ll need to add something to the letters ‘E’ and ‘X’ to make a word that means ‘leave.’ There’s only one word that fits, and that’s ‘EXIT.’ The two missing letters are ‘I’ and ‘T.’

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.