A standard game of the popular app HQ Trivia goes something like this: Questions one and two are almost embarrassingly easy, leading newbies to wonder why everyone doesn't walk away with a share of the prize money. Then, question three rolls around and almost half the field of players is wiped out at once. The host of the live gameshow app, Scott Rogowsky (a.k.a Quiz Daddy), has a name for this: It's a savage question.
For the first time ever, HQ agreed to share six of its most savage questions — the ones that eliminated the greatest number of players — with Refinery29. While the topics range from food to entertainment to finance, there are similarly "savage" characteristics. The questions all appeal to a player's common sense in some way: For about half, the answer is, in fact, the most obvious option given. For the other half, the correct answer is surprisingly not the one you're tricked into expecting.
Ahead, a breakdown of the questions that stumped hundreds of thousands of HQties and led to frantic Google searches for validation.
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Most people answered: Fried noodles
Actual answer: Birds' nests
Number of people eliminated: 1,765,281
Number of people who moved on: 265,339
Who knew that birds' nests could cause such a massive HQ massacre? The Asian delicacy and medicinal aid is made of dried bird saliva — yum! — something that almost two million players are unlikely to ever forget.
Illustrated by Louisa Cannell.
Most people answered: Daylight Savings Time
Actual answer: Daylight Saving Time
Players eliminated: 585,242
Players moving on: 109,702
The plural may be popular, but HQ (and multiple online articles about the clock-turning phenomenon) set the record straight: Saving is used as an adjective here, making it singular.
Illustrated by Louisa Cannell.
Most people answered: Yen
Actual answer: Renminbi
Players eliminated: 785,927
Players moving on: 71,796
Japan's currency is the yen, but China's is the Renminbi. However, yen does sound somewhat similar to yuan, which is the name for one unit of Renminbi. Unfortunately, mistaking the two proved costly for almost 800,000 people.
Illustrated by Louisa Cannell.
Most people answered: End of the line
Actual answer: Bottom of the bag
Players eliminated: 1,199,305
Players moving on: 447,290
"End of the line" is the obvious answer, since a 'cul-de-sac' refers to a street that's closed at one end. But if you translate it literally from its native French, you get "bottom of the bag." Sorry, HQties.
Illustrated by Louisa Cannell.
Most people answered: Amsterdam
Actual answer: Paris
Players eliminated: 2,310
Players moving on: 389
Amsterdam is referred to as the bike capital of the world, but the city of light has been innovating to a larger extent with its bike-sharing service Velib and dockless bike service Gobee. However, both have hit snags in recent months calling into question Paris's spot on top.
Illustrated by Louisa Cannell.
Most people answered: Dead Poets Society
Actual answer: Mrs. Doubtfire
Players eliminated: 107,767
Players moving on: 10,362
If you search Amazon for Dead Poets Society you'll find a book written by N.H. Kleinbaum, with a scene from the Robin Williams movie on the cover. However, as the jacket says the novel was based on the movie — not the other way around. Alias Madame Doubtfire, on the other hand, served as the inspiration for the film adaptation starring Williams.
Illustrated by Louisa Cannell.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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