BBC’s Only Connect fans stumped over ‘easy’ sequence puzzle
If you’ve ever switched on the TV in the late afternoon or early evening, you’ll have seen the host of quiz shows that we Brits love to watch. From BBC offerings like Pointless and Mastermind, to beloved ITV shows such as The Chase and Tipping Point, millions of us settle down with a cup of tea every afternoon to test how smart we really are.
One of the trickiest quiz shows on TV is widely agreed to be BBC Two’s Only Connect. Hosted by Victoria Coren Mitchell, the show sees teams of players compete in a tournament in which they have to find connections between seemingly unrelated clues. The clues can be linked in a variety of ways, including thematically, linguistically, and factually – and often require some serious lateral thinking to figure out.
As one of the hardest quiz shows out there, fans of Only Connect can feel a deep sense of pride when they answer a question correctly before the contestants are able to. There’s even an Only Connect forum on Reddit where people share their own questions for others to solve.
One question posted on the forum recently left people scratching their heads, as although the answer seemed “easy” once the solution was revealed, it was “impossible” for many to solve without hints. The question took inspiration from the second round of Only Connect, where players receive a maximum of three clues and have to determine what would come fourth in the sequence.
In this instance, the three clues given include two letters and then an arrow pointing to one more letter.
The clues were: EN -> E, TR -> X, AN -> I.
In order to solve the puzzle, you must work out what would come next in the sequence. You know that it likely has to be two letters on one side of the arrow and a single letter on the other – but other than that, you’ll need to look carefully at the actual letters used to try and work out the solution.
People in the comments of the post were quick to say the puzzle seemed “impossible” to them at first, but once they thought about it and laid out all the information in front of them, it was “easy” to solve. There’s no time limit, so take all the time you need to solve this one.
Try and think outside of the box, and don’t focus too much on the individual sets of letters themselves. Once you’re ready for the answer, keep scrolling to see if you solved it correctly.
Answer
The missing piece is CE -> T.
The pieces cleverly spell “Entrance” and “Exit”. The first clue gave you the EN of entrance and the E of exit, while the next clues gave you the subsequent letters. The only ones missing were the CE at the end of entrance, and the T from exit.
One person shared the answer on the Reddit forum with no further explanation, and when pushed to explain how they had reached the correct answer, someone else replied to say the solution was: “ENTRANCE -> EXIT”.
Another then said: “This is absolutely one of those that is more obvious when you see the clues next to each other rather than scrolling through.”
Did you get it right? Let us know in the comments!
