Advertisement
New Zealand markets closed
  • NZX 50

    12,105.29
    +94.63 (+0.79%)
     
  • NZD/USD

    0.5983
    -0.0022 (-0.37%)
     
  • NZD/EUR

    0.5536
    -0.0007 (-0.12%)
     
  • ALL ORDS

    8,153.70
    +80.10 (+0.99%)
     
  • ASX 200

    7,896.90
    +77.30 (+0.99%)
     
  • OIL

    82.57
    +1.22 (+1.50%)
     
  • GOLD

    2,234.90
    +22.20 (+1.00%)
     
  • NASDAQ

    18,285.07
    +4.23 (+0.02%)
     
  • FTSE

    7,965.62
    +33.64 (+0.42%)
     
  • Dow Jones

    39,785.92
    +25.84 (+0.06%)
     
  • DAX

    18,499.97
    +22.88 (+0.12%)
     
  • Hang Seng

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • NIKKEI 225

    40,168.07
    -594.66 (-1.46%)
     
  • NZD/JPY

    90.4950
    -0.2850 (-0.31%)
     

The 28 best quiz round ideas when you're hosting at home

quiz round ideas
The 28 best quiz rounds for your next dinner partyWarner Bros.

Let's face it, everyone loves a good quiz. They're so quintessentially British and they bring out sides of people you've never seen before. Your quiet friend? She's actually the most competitive person ever. Your cool as f*ck friend? He actually knows every lyric to Taylor Swift's 'All Too Well' – the 10 minute version.

So, if it's your turn to host a dinner party and you want to spice it up a little bit, here's a round up of the best quiz ideas the Cosmopolitan UK team have played so far. Forget the classic pub quiz questions ("What is Britain's favourite cake?" is so last month), this is all about the unpredictable.

If you are after the more classic quiz questions, we've got those covered too. How about most likely to or general knowledge? Or what about true or false and Christmas quiz questions?

1. Name the tune

Everyone loves a music round. They're a pub quiz favourite and always get the crowd going. If your dinner party has a theme, try and come up with different songs that match the occasion and play the first eight seconds to see if your participants can guess what they are. If you're having a girly night in, suggestions include:

ADVERTISEMENT
  • 'Ladies Night' - the Atomic Kitten Version, obviously

  • 'Shout Out to My Ex' - Little Mix

  • 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' - Cyndi Lauper

  • 'Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)' - Beyonce

  • 'I'm Every Woman' - Whitney Houston

2. Riddle me this

As it's your house, you are the quizmaster. It's kind of like a scavenger hunt but with a twist. All you have to do is read out a riddle to your guests and once they guess it right, have them compete against each other to find the item in your house somewhere.

The first person to guess and find the items the fastest gets the top prize, then second, third... you get the idea. This one is definitely for the competitive friend, so get ready for some serious rivalry, and perhaps a messy house.

3. What happened next?

Play a video clip (can either be related to your group or maybe something from the news, or a hilarious TikTok) and pause it right before something dramatic happens. Give your group multiple choice answers (or not!) about what happens next.

4. Wrong answers only

You know the TikTok challenge that calls for wrong answers only? Turn this into a quiz round by using very basic, open-ended questions (can be about the people in the group), and asking your participants to respond with the wrongest answer they can think of. The funniest response wins – a bit like Cards Against Humanity. E.g. 'What would Rob's autobiography be called?' or 'How does Martha like her eggs in the morning?'

5. Name the celebrity crush / baby picture

Get everyone in your party to submit a photograph for a picture round. It can be themed around anything – celebrity crush, school photo, inside their fridge...

Give each picture a number, and get your participants to try and match up the other people in the quiz to the pictures.

6. Song association

The concept is simple: you name a word, and everybody has 10 seconds to think of a song name with the word in (and they have to name the artist too to get the point!).

For example, if you say 'Love', they could have 'Crazy In Love' by Beyonce or 'I Will Always Love You' by Whitney Houston. This can be unsurprisingly quite hard.

7. Life drawing

No, it doesn't have to involve nudity! Rather, set a timer and ask everyone taking part to draw the same thing in an allotted amount of time – it could be you, a picture of a celebrity, a self portrait... a memory you all share.

Make sure you warn everyone they'll need a pen and paper in advance (or at least an iPhone app that allows for drawing). Pick a winner at the end of the round, and award the runners up some points each.

8. Whose body parts are these?

Another picture round: screenshot a close up body part of everyone in your group, and get them to guess who is who. The photo could be anything from a nipple (you'll probably need submissions for this...) to knees in Instagram pictures, or outfits people wore in 2012. Be creative!

9. What's the famous landmark?

Using Google Maps, screenshot a bird's eye view of famous places around the world (or maybe your university, or office building?) and have your participants try and guess where they are. This can be surprisingly hard and disorientating, depending on what your geography is like – would you know what the Eiffel Tower looks like from above?!

10. Whose voice is this?

Clip up videos of celebrities, politicians and people you know (maybe get them to send you a little voice note if you're struggling to find videos on your phone) and get your quiz competitors to guess who it is. It's surprisingly hard to identify a voice when it's out of context – especially if they're saying something bizarre.

11. The extreme close up

Another picture round idea is to create a cropped image of something recognisable, to the point where it becomes ~almost~ unrecognisable, and let people guess what it is. This could be anything from brand logos (The G of Google, anyone?) to photos of people taking the quiz, or even geographical locations.

12. How well do you know each other?

Want a really easy quiz idea? Get everyone in your party to submit five questions about themselves, and dedicate each round to each person. Try and vary their submissions – make one a photo, one a 'finish the story' and a few trivia questions. It can be anything from 'What's Sarah's mothers name?' to 'What song did Sarah request at midnight on her 27th birthday?' One genuine submission has also been 'Do I like Taylor Swift?'

13. Guess the facial feature mash up

Create a face using the facial features of your participants – use someone's forehead, someone's eyebrows, someone's eyes and so on – and give them a point for each one they get right.

Make it harder by using seriously retro photos – scroll through Facebook to find pictures from the early 2010s, when people probably won't even recognise themselves.

14. Who did it better?

This round might require some warning, but ask everyone at your dinner party to recreate the same thing, and then have someone judge which one is best. Could be ANYTHING, maybe everyone makes a hat out of toilet roll and newspaper, and an independent adjudicator (side note: someone's flatmate) decides which one is the most aesthetically pleasing, or ask everyone to attempt to recreate a movie poster using household items. Hard, but fun.

15. Most likely to...

Much like the drinking game, the quizmasters ask a 'Most Likely To' question, and those participating have 5 seconds to write down who they think best fits the answer on a piece of paper. Everybody then flashes their answer up around the table, and whoever writes down the same people as the quizmaster, wins.

16. You've only got four minutes

Taking it in turns, each person participating in the quiz comes up with a challenge, which everybody else participating in has four minutes to complete, before the challenger picks the winner. If there are five people participating, there will be five rounds of four minute challenges. For example, 'You've only got four minutes to turn yourself into a 1920s flapper girl'. Or, 'You've only got four minutes to perfect your best Adele impression'. Once the timer is up, each person presents their entry, and the challenger picks how many points each person gets, before passing the challenge onto someone else.

17. What year was it?

This round involves listing a number of iconic events that all happened in the same year, and then asking your competitors to guess what year it was. It's best if you include some personal anecdotes ('The year Nathan broke his leg in Tesco') as well as some global events ('The year Beijing hosted the Olympics.)

18. Serious karaoke

Read out the lyrics to recognisable – and not so recognisable – songs, and watch as your quiz takers attempt to hum the tune to themselves and work out what the lyrics are from. Make it more fun by giving a dramatic reading of the lyrics, or doing an interpretive dance to go with them. Because why not?

19. Translate the song lyrics

Take some well-known lyrics – maybe a line or two – and feed it back and forth into Google Translate enough times that the words come back completely different.

See if your fellow quiz players can guess what the lyrics originally were, and award them King or Queen of Music if they can!

20. “Almost famous”

In this round, your quiz mates will need to match up the well-known Hollywood stars with the big films/TV shows they failed to get cast in.

It might be an effort to prepare, but the answers will definitely blow your friends’ minds!

21. Name the book map

Niche, but very fun and whimsical. Take a selection of elaborately drawn maps from classics such as Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and/or Game of Thrones and show them to your contestants – see if they can guess which big fantastical title each map is from.

22. Name the album cover

This one is pretty self explanatory. Select album covers from a range of decades, genres and musician's back catalogue. The more random, the better. Line them up as part of a round, and ask your mates to name the band and album name for each one.

23. Who said this Friends line?

Or any other famous or beloved TV show within your friendship group of family. The more ridiculous, the better.

24. Spelling bee

Bringing the back to school vibes. Mix in a few ridiculously long words with silent letters, and then a few easier ones to lull your pals into a false sense of security.

E-A-S-Y.

25. Guess the board game boards

Find images of your favourite board game boards, as well as a few real random and niche ones that may not be as easy to recognise. The name of the game is to guess the board game from the picture of each board.

26. Match the celebrity pet to its owner

Not all pets look like their owner, or this round would be supremely easy – and it isn't.

From the Paris Hilton's chihuahua to George Clooney's pot-bellied pig from back in the day, show your fellow contestants pics of these beloved animals and have them guess who they belong(ed) to.

27. Who tweeted this?

Cast your mind (and Internet history) back and find the most ridiculous, obscure things that celebrities, politicians, influencers have posted, blot out their names and have your friends try and guess who posted what.

You may be surprised at their answers!

28. The emoji round

The mission is to spell out popular books, songs, bands, TV shows – you name it – with emojis alone.

And leave your poor fellow contestants to guess.

Other quiz round ideas:

Consider your next quiz: sorted.

You Might Also Like