While the posts on HOT, TOP or NEW show up with the question as their titles, it's not really the question that is ending up there, but the answer. That's the first thing to note.
Now, that could be different depending on how much of an upvote questions got, which is what's driving the HOT and TOP lists.
HOT
This list is compromised of the posts (predominantly answers) that usually have the highest amount of rewards allocated to it in the sample period. That's not always the case, so there may also be a rate of increase component to it, too.
TOP
This is an all-time list, also determined by rewards allocation. So, those who are the top of that list are the highest rewarded Musing posts (again mostly answers).
NEW
This is more or less self-explanatory, except in this case, these are questions listed in the order they were published. In this case, subsequent upvoting has no bearing on placement.