The 45 best quiz round ideas for your next dinner party

If you really want to get ahead of the game and try to reduce the chance of you coming last again at your next pub quiz, how about practicing at home?

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.

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:

• '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. Finish the lyric

List out a series of well-known lyrics - and maybe sneak some harder ones in there too. But leave off the end of the line or verse. Whoever correctly guesses the ending wins. You could even do bonus points for the most hilariously wrong answers - if you're feeling more fun than competitive that is.

3. Lyric misheard

We all think we know the lyrics, until 10 years down the line we realise just how wrong we've been getting them.

List out various lyrics and ask participants to identify which are wrong or not.

4. Genre switch

Play a well-known song but the cover version and in a completely different genre and people have to guess who the original artist is.

5. Song association idea

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.

6. 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?

7. 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!

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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?' Give points for your favourite answers.

11. 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.

12. Emoji sentence deciphering

We’re taking it one step further here. Create a sentence using emojis and people have to decipher what they mean i.e.

• 🌧 🐈 🐕‍🦺 = Raining cats and dogs
• 🥶👣 = Get cold feet
• ❌ 🌉🚶🏽‍♂️ = Cross that bridge when we come to it

13. Name that meme

Distort or obscure images of well-known memes and get them to guess what they are.

14. Who tweeted this?

Cast your mind (and Internet history) back and find the most ridiculous, obscure things that celebrities, politicians, influencers have posted - or throw some of your own in there too. Blot out their names and have your friends try and guess who posted what.

You may be surprised at their answers!

15. Which picture belongs to which person?

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.

16. 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.

17. Guess the brand logo

We see so many logos everyday, and yet you'd be amazed at how many you couldn't actually name when it comes round to it, and that quiz round is designed to test exactly that. To make the quiz round show your guests a number of different brand logos and have them guess the name of each brand.

18. Guess the cereal box

One for the nostalgia - we’re thinking Frosties, Shreddies, you name it.. If you can that is.

19. Guess the board game

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.

20. 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?!

You may think you’ve got a good eye for spotting some of the world’s most famous landmarks, but the last time you actually studied Geography was a lot longer ago than your probably care to admit.

21. Who's body part is this?

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!

22. Ex-partner blur

Yes, we’re going down ex alley. The question is, how much have your friends stalked your exes or crushes on your behalf?

23. Who drew it better?

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.

24. Name the famous artwork

Zoom in on sections of famous artwork - i.e. Monet's waterlilies - and get them to guess the artist's name but also the artwork's title for a bonus point.

25. Match the eyes to the celebrity

Get up close and personal as you're ever going to get to Leo - sorry - with pictures of various celebrities eyes, seeing if participants can recognise them.

After staring into Henry Cavill's for so long, you should really be able to identify his after all.

26. Who's voice is this?

Clip up videos of celebrities, politicians and even people you know to really throw them off (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.

More where this came from!

True or false quiz questions and answers

Music quiz questions and answers

Geography quiz questions and answers

27. 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!

More organised fun this way!

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28. Pet like their celebrity 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.

View full post on Instagram

29. 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.)

30. How well do you know each other?

Because history doesn't just have to mean what you learnt in school. 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?'

31. 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.

32. How well do you know your hometown?

Think you know your hometown like the back of your hand? Well think again as with this quiz round you might be surprised about how little you actually know about where you grew up. It's a super easy round to organise, all you need to do is some research about your hometown and devise the questions, a few personal anecdote questions relating to your town will also go down very well.

33. Everyone's year in numbers

Before your quiz, ask all of the players to submit a few statistics about themselves for you to turn into a quiz round for a wider group. You're aiming for questions like -

• How many countries did Jack visit this year?
• How many sick days did Lauren take this year?
• In the group holiday Whatsapp Chat, how many pictures have been sent in the last three months?
• How many Instagram photos has Ellen shared this year?

Either make them multiple choice or keep things stripped back, to test how closely your friends have been paying attention.

34. 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.

35. 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.

36. 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.

37. Book covers

Take photographs of various book covers and see if even the greatest bookworms among you can recognise them.

38. 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.

39. Who said this Friends line?

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

40. Movie poster round

While some movie posters are pretty easy to identify (um hi Barbie!), there are some that are a bit more obscure and guessing the movie titles is a fun and quick quiz round.

41. Guess the movie soundtrack

If your friends and family are movie buffs then this a competitive quiz which will see who really knows their movies. Play a selection of snippets from iconic movie soundtracks and have your guests guess the movie. Depending on who you have playing you could play just five seconds of a song or be more generous with your timings. And you can be more specific with the genre too, say you friends all love fantasy movies then only play soundtracks from that genre.

42. 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.

43. Guess the chocolate

This is a super easy one to organise, particularly around the festive period when you're bound to have lots of random chocolates at home. All you need to do is remove the wrappers from a number of chocolates, divide them in half and have your guests guess the flavour. In this round everyone's a winner.

44. Guess the recipe

In this round you need to read out the ingredients of a recipe for any meal or cocktail, and have guests guess what recipe you're describing. So if you said vodka, cranberry juice, triple sec and lime juice, you would of course be describing the recipe for a cosmopolitan cocktail.

45. Name the Christmas character

'Cos, is it just us or do you hardly remember any of the names of characters in Christmas films despite watching them every year?

Test your friends and family's knowledge with this festive quiz which will have everyone seriously scratching their heads over iconic Christmas characters' names.

Consider your next quiz: sorted.

Although, if you are after the more classic quiz questions, don't worry, we've got those covered too. How about most likely to or general knowledge? Or what about true or false and Christmas quiz questions?