The challenge looks almost ridiculously straightforward. Four familiar words are placed beside a standard telephone keypad, but there is one sneaky rule that changes everything. Only one answer can be spelled using letters found on just two of the numbered keys.

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If you think you are good at spotting patterns, this could be the perfect test.

A deceptively simple brain teaser from ITV’s The 1% Club is putting that confidence to the test, asking players to look beyond the words themselves and focus on something most people probably stopped noticing years ago: the letters printed underneath the numbers on a telephone keypad.

The show is deliberately built around logic, common sense and observation rather than traditional general-knowledge questions, with puzzles becoming progressively more difficult as contestants try to reach the £100,000 top prize.

And this particular puzzle is a classic example of how The 1% Club can make something completely ordinary suddenly feel much harder.

The question is simple:

Which of these words is spelt using letters from only two keys on the keypad?

Four options appear on the screen:

BANANAS

PREFERRED

MONOPOLY

MISSION

At first glance, there is no obvious connection between them.

They are all perfectly familiar words, and nothing about their spelling immediately screams “trick question”.

That is exactly where the trap lies.

Rather than reading the words normally, you need to break every letter down and work out which numbered key it belongs to.

On a conventional telephone keypad, the letters are arranged like this:

2: ABC
3: DEF
4: GHI
5: JKL
6: MNO
7: PQRS
8: TUV
9: WXYZ

The challenge is not asking which word contains only two different letters.

It is asking which word can be created using letters found on only two different numbered keys.

And that tiny distinction makes the puzzle considerably more difficult.

Take BANANAS, for example.

The letters come from several different keys. B and A are both on 2, N is on 6 and S is on 7.

So that option is immediately out.

MONOPOLY looks tempting, but it also spreads across multiple keys. M, O and N are on 6, while P is on 7, L is on 5 and Y is on 9.

Another one eliminated.

Then there is MISSION.

M, O and N are all on 6, but I comes from 4 and S comes from 7.

Once again, too many keys.

That leaves one word.

But before revealing it, take another look at the image and give yourself a few seconds.

This is precisely the sort of puzzle that can produce an unexpected confidence crash. You may recognise every word instantly, but recognition is not what is being tested. The real challenge is whether you can switch your thinking from spelling to keypad mapping.

That is also why puzzles from The 1% Club can feel so different from conventional quiz questions. The show specifically uses questions designed around logic and common sense rather than simply testing what contestants have memorised.

So, which word survives?

The answer: PREFERRED

PREFERRED is the only correct choice.

Here is the trick.

Every letter in PREFERRED appears on either key 3 or key 7:

P → 7
R → 7
E → 3
F → 3
E → 3
R → 7
R → 7
E → 3
D → 3

That means the entire word can be typed using letters from just two keys: 3 and 7.

The other three answers require letters from at least three different numbered keys.

And that is the sneaky little detail that makes this puzzle look far easier than it really is.

Did you spot PREFERRED before reaching the answer?