Quiz Questions and Answers: 100 to Play or Host

1. If you add up all the dots on a standard six-sided die, what is the total?

21 Opposite faces of a standard die always add up to seven, so its three pairs of faces make 21.

2. What makes flamingos pink?

Their diet Pigments called carotenoids in the algae and tiny shrimp they eat turn their feathers pink, and the chicks hatch grey or white.

3. What do you call a word that reads the same backwards as forwards, like 'level' or 'kayak'?

A palindrome The word comes from Greek for 'running back again', and 'Was it a car or a cat I saw?' works as a whole-sentence palindrome.

4. Which planet in our solar system is the only one not named after a Greek or Roman god?

Earth Earth's name comes from Old English and Germanic words meaning ground or soil, while every other planet honours a Greek or Roman god.

5. What is the national animal of Scotland?

The unicorn A symbol of purity and power in Scottish heraldry for centuries, the unicorn now faces the English lion on the royal coat of arms.

6. What shape is wombat poo?

Cubes The uneven walls of their intestines shape the droppings into cubes, which wombats leave on rocks and logs to mark their territory.

7. What is the plastic or metal tip on the end of a shoelace called?

An aglet The word comes from the Old French 'aiguillette', meaning little needle, which is exactly the job it does when you thread a lace.

8. What is the small dot above a lowercase 'i' or 'j' called?

A tittle The word survives in the old phrase 'every jot and tittle', meaning every last tiny detail.

9. Which of these is botanically a berry?

Banana To a botanist a berry grows from a single ovary with its seeds inside, so bananas qualify while strawberries and raspberries do not.

10. How big is a googol?

A 1 followed by 100 zeros The name was coined by the young nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and Google's name is a play on it.

11. How many days are there in a fortnight?

14 Fortnight is a shortening of the Old English for 'fourteen nights', and the word is far more common in British and Irish English than in American.

12. Which month has the fewest days?

February February has 28 days, or 29 in a leap year, a leftover from the early Roman calendar in which it was the last month of the year.

13. Which animal is known as the 'ship of the desert'?

The camel Camels can go days without drinking, and their humps store fat, not water, which is one of the most common animal misconceptions.

14. Which bird is a traditional symbol of peace?

The dove The dove with an olive branch comes from the story of Noah's Ark, and a Picasso dove became the emblem of a 1949 peace congress in Paris.

15. How many years are there in a millennium?

1,000 Millennium comes from the Latin 'mille', meaning thousand, and 'annus', meaning year.

16. Who wrote 'A Christmas Carol'?

Charles Dickens Published in 1843, it introduced Ebenezer Scrooge and made 'Bah! Humbug!' part of the language.

17. Which sign of the zodiac is represented by a pair of scales?

Libra Libra is Latin for 'scales' or 'balance', and it is the only sign of the zodiac shown as an object rather than a living creature.

18. How many zeros are there in one million?

Six A billion has nine, although older British usage once meant a million million, which has twelve.

19. Which country's flag features a red maple leaf?

Canada The Maple Leaf flag was adopted in 1965, replacing the Canadian Red Ensign, which carried a Union Flag in the corner.

20. What is the main language spoken in Mexico?

Spanish Mexico has more Spanish speakers than any other country in the world, well over twice as many as Spain itself.

21. What is a baby kangaroo called?

A joey A newborn joey is roughly the size of a jellybean and crawls straight into its mother's pouch, where it stays for months.

22. Which UK nation has a red dragon on its flag?

Wales Wales is not represented on the Union Flag, because it was treated as part of the Kingdom of England when the first union flag appeared in 1606.

23. What is the name of the fairy in 'Peter Pan'?

Tinker Bell J. M. Barrie gave the rights to Peter Pan to London's Great Ormond Street Hospital in 1929, and the story still earns the hospital royalties.

24. How many pieces does each player have at the start of a game of chess?

16 Each side starts with eight pawns, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, a queen and a king.

25. Which fairy-tale character leaves behind a glass slipper at the ball?

Cinderella Versions of the story are centuries older, but the glass slipper comes from Charles Perrault's French telling of 1697.

26. Which toy building bricks were invented in Denmark?

LEGO The name comes from the Danish 'leg godt', meaning 'play well'.

27. In the books by Michael Bond, which country does Paddington Bear come from?

Peru He comes from 'darkest Peru', home of the real spectacled bear, and is found at London's Paddington station wearing a label asking people to look after him.

28. A golden wedding anniversary celebrates how many years of marriage?

50 Silver marks 25 years, ruby 40 and diamond 60.

29. In London, what exactly is 'Big Ben'?

The great bell Big Ben is the nickname of the great bell, while the tower was renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012 for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee.

30. How many legs does a typical crab have, counting its claws?

Ten Crabs belong to the decapods, a name meaning 'ten feet', and their front pair of legs are the claws.

31. Which singer is nicknamed 'The Boss'?

Bruce Springsteen The nickname dates from his early days in New Jersey bars, when he collected the band's pay after gigs and shared it out.

32. In which city is the Cavern Club, where the Beatles played regularly in the early 1960s?

Liverpool The Beatles played there nearly 300 times between 1961 and 1963, and it is where Brian Epstein first saw them perform.

33. Who was known as the 'King of Rock and Roll'?

Elvis Presley Elvis bought Graceland, his home in Memphis, in 1957, and it opened to the public as a museum in 1982.

34. How many members were there in the Spice Girls?

Five A pop magazine gave them the nicknames that stuck: Scary, Sporty, Baby, Ginger and Posh.

35. Which country does the band U2 come from?

Ireland The band formed at a school in Dublin in 1976, after drummer Larry Mullen Jr pinned up a notice looking for musicians.

36. Which singer was born Reginald Dwight?

Elton John He built his stage name from two bandmates in the group Bluesology, saxophonist Elton Dean and singer Long John Baldry.

37. Which instrument is Yo-Yo Ma famous for playing?

The cello Born in Paris to Chinese parents, he performed on American television in front of President Kennedy when he was just seven years old.

38. Which band released the album 'Rumours' in 1977?

Fleetwood Mac It was recorded while two couples in the band were breaking up, and it became one of the best-selling albums of all time.

39. Which Motown group was fronted by Diana Ross?

The Supremes Between 1964 and 1969 the Supremes scored 12 US number-one singles, rivalling the Beatles in the American charts.

40. Glenn Miller, the big-band leader who vanished over the English Channel in 1944, played which instrument?

The trombone His plane disappeared on 15 December 1944 on a flight from England to Paris, and no trace of it has ever been found.

41. What is the name of the snowman in Disney's 'Frozen'?

Olaf Olaf is voiced by Josh Gad, and the film's song 'Let It Go' won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

42. In the 1964 film 'Mary Poppins', what does Mary use to fly?

An umbrella P. L. Travers, who wrote the books, was famously unhappy with Disney's film, especially its animated sequences.

43. Which fictional spy has the code number 007?

James Bond The 00 prefix gives him a licence to kill, and Ian Fleming borrowed the name from an American expert on birds.

44. Which superhero's secret identity is Peter Parker?

Spider-Man Spider-Man first appeared in 1962 in Amazing Fantasy #15, which was meant to be the final issue of that comic.

45. In 'Harry Potter', what is the name of Harry's owl?

Hedwig Hedwig is a snowy owl, bought for Harry by Hagrid as a present for his eleventh birthday.

46. Which sitcom is set at the Scranton branch of the Dunder Mifflin paper company?

The Office (US) The American series was adapted from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's British original, set in the Slough office of Wernham Hogg.

47. In 'Back to the Future', what speed must the DeLorean reach to travel through time?

88 mph The time machine runs on a flux capacitor, which needs 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, delivered in the film by a bolt of lightning.

48. In 'Friends', what is the name of Ross's pet monkey?

Marcel Marcel is a white-headed capuchin, and Ross reluctantly sends him to San Diego Zoo in the first series.

49. Which actress played Holly Golightly in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'?

Audrey Hepburn Truman Capote, who wrote the original novella, had wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part.

50. Which film was the first to win all of the Academy Awards' 'Big Five': Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay?

It Happened One Night Only two films have matched it since: 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' in 1975 and 'The Silence of the Lambs' in 1991.

51. Which scientist set out the three laws of motion?

Isaac Newton Newton published them in 1687 in his Principia, the same book that set out his law of universal gravitation.

52. What is the longest bone in the human body?

The femur The femur, or thigh bone, is also the strongest bone in the body.

53. What kind of animal is a Komodo dragon?

A lizard It is the largest living lizard in the world and is found in the wild only on a handful of Indonesian islands.

54. What is the name for a group of stars forming a recognised pattern in the night sky?

A constellation Astronomers officially recognise 88 constellations, which between them cover the whole sky.

55. What do honeybees collect from flowers to make honey?

Nectar Bees fan the nectar with their wings to evaporate much of its water, until it thickens into honey.

56. Which planet is less dense than water, meaning it would float in a big enough bath?

Saturn Saturn's average density is about 0.69 grams per cubic centimetre, roughly two thirds that of water.

57. What is the medical name for the voice box?

The larynx The Adam's apple is a bump of cartilage at the front of the larynx, which usually grows larger in boys during puberty.

58. Which type of cloud is the towering cloud that brings thunderstorms?

Cumulonimbus The biggest cumulonimbus clouds rise until they hit the top of the lower atmosphere, then spread out into a flat anvil shape.

59. Which organ in the human body produces insulin?

The pancreas Insulin was first used to treat a person with diabetes in 1922, in Toronto, and the discovery won a Nobel Prize the following year.

60. Which sea creature has blue blood that is used to test injectable medicines for bacterial contamination?

The horseshoe crab Its blood is blue because it carries copper-based haemocyanin, and an extract from it reacts to tiny traces of bacterial toxins.

61. What is the capital of Scotland?

Edinburgh Edinburgh Castle stands on Castle Rock, the plug of an extinct volcano.

62. In which city is the Golden Gate Bridge?

San Francisco Its colour is officially called International Orange, chosen partly because it stays visible in the fog that rolls through the strait.

63. Which is the largest country in South America?

Brazil Brazil borders every other South American country except Chile and Ecuador.

64. What is the capital of Greece?

Athens In legend the city is named after the goddess Athena, who won it by giving its people the olive tree.

65. Mont Blanc, the highest peak in western Europe, is in which mountain range?

The Alps Mont Blanc stands on the border of France and Italy, and a road tunnel runs beneath it linking the two countries.

66. In which country is the city of Timbuktu?

Mali Once a rich centre of trade and Islamic learning, its name became English shorthand for the remotest place imaginable.

67. Which two countries share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola?

Haiti and the Dominican Republic Christopher Columbus landed there in 1492 and named it La Isla Española, 'the Spanish island'.

68. Which sea lies between Italy and the Balkan coast of Croatia?

The Adriatic Venice sits at its northern end, which is why the old republic was called the 'Queen of the Adriatic'.

69. What is the name of the line of 0 degrees longitude?

The Prime Meridian An international conference in Washington chose the meridian through Greenwich in London as zero in 1884.

70. Which country has three capital cities?

South Africa Pretoria is the executive capital, Cape Town the legislative capital and Bloemfontein the judicial capital.

71. Which brothers made the first powered aeroplane flight in 1903?

The Wright brothers Orville Wright's first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, lasted about 12 seconds and covered roughly 36 metres, less than a jumbo jet's wingspan.

72. Which English queen was known as the 'Virgin Queen'?

Elizabeth I The American colony of Virginia was named in her honour in the 1580s.

73. Which British nurse became known as 'The Lady with the Lamp'?

Florence Nightingale She earned the name doing night rounds of wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, and later founded a nursing school in London.

74. What is the name of the Roman wall built across northern England?

Hadrian's Wall Building began around AD 122, and the wall ran about 73 miles from coast to coast.

75. Which ship was Admiral Nelson aboard at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805?

HMS Victory Nelson was killed during the battle, and HMS Victory is still a commissioned Royal Navy ship, preserved in dry dock in Portsmouth.

76. Who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic?

Amelia Earhart She made the flight in 1932, five years before she vanished over the Pacific while trying to fly around the world.

77. Which of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was said to be in Babylon?

The Hanging Gardens No trace of them has ever been found, and some historians think they were really in Nineveh, or never existed at all.

78. Which explorer's ship, Endurance, was crushed by Antarctic sea ice in 1915?

Ernest Shackleton All 28 men survived, and the wreck was finally found in 2022, about three kilometres down in the Weddell Sea.

79. In which year did the Great Fire of London break out?

1666 It started in a bakery on Pudding Lane, burned for about four days and destroyed the medieval St Paul's Cathedral.

80. Which king was crowned Emperor of the Romans by the Pope on Christmas Day in the year 800?

Charlemagne Pope Leo III crowned him in St Peter's in Rome, reviving the title of emperor in western Europe for the first time in over three centuries.

81. How many players does a rugby union team have on the field?

15 Rugby league, which split from union in 1895, plays with 13 a side.

82. In which sport do teams compete in the Six Nations Championship?

Rugby union The six teams are England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales, and Italy was the last to join, in 2000.

83. In tennis, what is a serve called if the opponent fails to touch it?

An ace A let is different: the serve clips the net and lands in, so it is simply played again.

84. In which sport do England and Australia compete for the Ashes?

Cricket The name comes from a mock obituary printed in 1882 declaring English cricket dead after a home defeat by Australia.

85. Which sport uses the terms 'stone', 'house' and 'sweeping'?

Curling Many of the world's top curling stones are made from granite quarried on Ailsa Craig, a tiny island off the coast of Scotland.

86. In snooker, how many points is the black ball worth?

Seven After each red, worth one point, the colours run from yellow at two up to black at seven.

87. When James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, what did he use as the first hoops?

Peach baskets Naismith, a Canadian teaching in Massachusetts, nailed two peach baskets to a balcony, and the ball had to be fetched out after every score.

88. In cricket, what are the two small pieces of wood resting on top of the stumps called?

Bails A batter is bowled only if the wicket is broken, usually by a bail falling, so a ball can brush the stumps without the batter being out.

89. Which country won the first Rugby World Cup in 1987?

New Zealand The tournament was co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia, and the All Blacks beat France in the final in Auckland.

90. In which athletics event would you see the 'Fosbury Flop'?

The high jump Dick Fosbury won Olympic gold with his backwards technique in Mexico City in 1968, and it soon became the standard way to jump.

91. Which chemical element is named after a planet discovered in 1781?

Uranium Martin Klaproth named uranium in 1789 after Uranus, which William Herschel had spotted eight years earlier.

92. What is the smallest bone in the human body?

The stapes The stapes, or stirrup, sits in the middle ear and is only about three millimetres long.

93. Which Victorian novelist was really called Mary Ann Evans?

George Eliot She chose a male pen name partly so her work would be taken seriously, and her novels include Middlemarch and Silas Marner.

94. In the NATO phonetic alphabet, which word stands for the letter Q?

Quebec The alphabet was designed so each word could be understood by English, French and Spanish speakers over a crackling radio.

95. Which city was the capital of the Inca Empire?

Cusco Inca stonework in Cusco was fitted so precisely that many walls still stand as the foundations of Spanish colonial buildings.

96. Which gas is responsible for the smell of rotten eggs?

Hydrogen sulphide Natural gas has no smell of its own, so suppliers add sulphur compounds called mercaptans to make leaks easy to notice.

97. Who composed the Brandenburg Concertos?

Johann Sebastian Bach Bach dedicated the six concertos in 1721 to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, which is how they got their name.

98. What is the longest river in Europe?

The Volga The Volga runs about 3,500 kilometres through Russia and empties into the Caspian Sea.

99. Which number, written out in English, is the only one whose letters are in alphabetical order?

Forty F, O, R, T and Y run in perfect alphabetical order, and no other number word in English manages it.

100. Which scientist first used the word "cell" for the tiny compartments he saw in a slice of cork?

Robert Hooke Hooke described them in Micrographia in 1665, one of the first books to show the world through a microscope.