Trivia questions with answers: 40 in 5 rounds

Quiz tonight and no questions yet? Below are forty, with answers, split into five rounds of eight. Enough for a pub quiz, a party or a birthday. For four of the rounds there's also a ready-made quiz on the same topic in Discover, with different questions. Together that gives you a whole evening straight away.

Round 1: general knowledge

1. How many keys does a standard piano have? 88
2. What is the smallest prime number? 2
3. Who wrote Romeo and Juliet? William Shakespeare
4. How many days are there in a leap year? 366
5. What colour do you get when you mix blue and yellow? Green
6. Which country does the margherita pizza come from? Italy
7. How many players per team are on the pitch in football? 11
8. Which language has the most native speakers in the world? Mandarin Chinese

Play it ready-made: the pub quiz: general knowledge in Discover, twelve questions about geography, art, space, animals and sport.

Round 2: geography

1. What is the longest river in Europe? The Volga
2. What is the smallest country in the world? Vatican City
3. What is the largest country in the world? Russia
4. On which continent is the Sahara? Africa
5. Which mountain range forms the border between France and Spain? The Pyrenees
6. What is the capital of Iceland? Reykjavik
7. Which city is nicknamed the Big Apple? New York
8. Which sea lies between Europe and Africa? The Mediterranean Sea

Play it ready-made: capitals of the world, with a map question where players point to the place on the world map.

Round 3: history

1. In what year did Columbus first reach the Americas? 1492
2. Which pharaoh's tomb was found almost intact in 1922? Tutankhamun
3. Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize? Marie Curie
4. Who brought printing with movable type to Europe around 1450? Johannes Gutenberg
5. In what year did the First World War begin? 1914
6. Which French emperor lost the Battle of Waterloo in 1815? Napoleon Bonaparte
7. What was the name of the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957? Sputnik
8. In which city was John F. Kennedy shot in 1963? Dallas

Play it ready-made: world history, from the Incas to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Round 4: science and nature

1. At how many degrees Celsius does water boil at sea level? 100
2. What is the largest organ of the human body? The skin
3. How many hearts does an octopus have? Three
4. Which metal is liquid at room temperature? Mercury
5. What is the fastest land animal? The cheetah
6. How many planets are there in our solar system? Eight
7. Which blood type is known as the universal donor? O negative
8. What is the process called in which plants make sugar from sunlight? Photosynthesis

Play it ready-made: science & nature, about planets, animals and chemistry.

Round 5: estimates

In this round the winner isn't whoever knows it exactly, but whoever gets closest. Use the Slider here: players slide to a number, and within the margin you choose, the closer they are, the more points they get. In brackets you'll find a range and a margin that work well.

1. How many countries are members of the United Nations? 193 (100 to 250, margin 10)
2. In what year did the first iPhone go on sale? 2007 (1995 to 2020, margin 2)
3. In what year were the first modern Olympic Games held? 1896, in Athens (1850 to 1950, margin 5)
4. How many kilometres is a marathon, rounded? 42 (0 to 100, margin 3)
5. How many seconds are there in an hour? 3,600 (0 to 10,000, margin 300)
6. How long is the equator, in kilometres? About 40,075 (0 to 100,000, margin 2,500)
7. How high is Mount Everest, in metres? About 8,849 (5,000 to 12,000, margin 300)
8. How deep is the deepest point of the ocean, in metres? Almost 11,000 (0 to 20,000, margin 1,000)

How to put them into Sparqel

Every question above can become a regular Quiz question, with the right answer and three wrong ones that sound believable. For the experts, make it a Type answer: then there are no options to choose from. Which question type works when, and how the points add up, is explained in the question types.

Rather not type everything into the editor? Download the Excel template, paste the questions into it and import the file. Here's how to import questions from Excel.

Tips for the evening

• Put a slide with the name of the next round between rounds.
• Start easy and finish with the estimates round. Anyone can still win there, even if they're behind.
• Play the quiz through once yourself on your phone, so you know how it runs.

How to plan the whole evening, from projector to leaderboard, is in how to host a pub quiz.

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