This question, posed on ITV quiz programme The 1% Club, has left viewers baffled. Whilst it appears straightforward to answer, it could potentially have two different solutions.

Amongst the countless quiz programmes on our screens, The 1% Club presents a distinctive format by grading question difficulty according to the percentage of people capable of answering them.

The programme, presented by Lee Mack, begins with simple questions that 90% of people ought to manage, before concluding with the devilishly challenging 1% question – a puzzle that an overwhelming 99% of people should get wrong. Answer that brainteaser correctly, and you might depart with a cash reward, or at least tremendous satisfaction if you’re viewing from home.

However, one question recently featured on the programme left certain viewers puzzled. Whilst the solution appeared “straightforward”, there was a hidden catch in how the question was phrased that caught many people out.

The 1% Club official X account shared one of the questions used on the programme over the weekend. It displayed a picture of nine national flags and challenged people to identify the remaining one after a series of conditions had been applied.

The question stated: “If you take away all the flags that have stars, circles, red crosses, black stripes, and the colour green, which one is left?”

The flags can be seen in the X post above, labelled A-I, and are as follows: A) Algeria, B) Trinidad and Tobago, C) United Kingdom, D) Scotland, E) Aland, F) Bangladesh, G) Japan, H) Senegal, and I) Tanzania.

The nations and territories these flags represent aren’t relevant to the puzzle, though give yourself credit if you recognised them all – particularly if you identified the flag of Aland, an autonomous territory of Finland.

Your task is to answer correctly by determining which flag meets the criteria outlined above. This ought to be fairly straightforward, and there’s just one flag that fulfils the requirements, so if you’ve somehow narrowed it down to two options, you’ve gone wrong somewhere.

After you’ve worked through the puzzle, you should conclude that the sole remaining flag once all others have been ruled out is Scotland’s. And you’d be correct – or would you?

Whilst this does meet the criteria and was the solution provided on the television programme, some viewers in the comments section highlighted that the phrasing of the question could be interpreted as somewhat deceptive.

In particular, the question requests a flag that doesn’t feature “stars, circles, red crosses, black stripes, and the colour green”. The deployment of the word “and” rather than “or” suggests that the solution could technically be that all flags qualify – since none possess every single one of those characteristics.

One viewer observed: “All of them because none of them have stars, circles, red crosses, black stripes and the colour green.”

Another commented: “None of these flags has stars, circles, red crosses, black stripes and the colour green. In fact, Scotland (D) doesn’t have any of those!”

A third remarked: “Being a pedant, isn’t the answer for all of them, as the question lists all the options and the word AND, which suggests you need to remove all flags that have all those things.”

The answer the programme was seeking was Scotland, so if you identified that correctly, well done!