The general knowledge round is the one every quiz has and the one nobody can
revise for directly, because "general knowledge" is not a subject. It is
whatever the question setter reads, and in a British pub quiz that means a
particular and surprisingly stable mixture: geography, twentieth-century
history, sport, chart music, television, and a steady trickle of the
etymological and the zoological.
The questions below are drawn from that middle ground — the ones that belong
to no round in particular and therefore turn up in all of them.
What actually comes up
We counted. Five archives of real quiz questions, 684,841 of them, were
scored against what this app teaches and checked against 301 answers recorded
at actual quiz nights; the method and its failure modes are set out in
the corpus analysis. The
short version is that the distribution is far narrower than it feels. A small
number of answers account for a large share of the questions — countries,
capitals, elements, monarchs, Shakespeare, the Beatles — and the long tail,
though genuinely endless, is not where rounds are won.
This matters for how you prepare. The instinct is to read widely and hope.
The evidence favours the opposite: a bounded set of high-frequency facts,
practised by retrieval rather than by review, beats a larger set met once. The
reasoning, with citations, is in
how to get better at pub quizzes.
The traps
Two recur often enough to be worth naming. The first is the question that
sounds like general knowledge and is really arithmetic or logic wearing a
costume — the
Monty Hall problem and
the birthday paradox both appear in
quizzes dressed as trivia. The second is the fact everybody knows that is not
true: QWERTY was not designed to slow
typists down, and
the Bermuda Triangle loses no
more ships than any comparably busy stretch of sea. Setters enjoy both.
Where is the town Volvic, the origin of the water bottle brand?
Answer France
Countries with the most Eurovision wins?
Answer Ireland and Sweden (7 each)
In which country was Che Guevara born?
Answer Argentina
In which US State is Pebble Beach Golf Course?
Answer California
What colour are the flowers of the Arnica plant?
Answer Yellow
What is temporarily stored in a bowser?
Answer Water
Iridology concerns which part of the human body?
Answer Eye
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed 4 years before what war?
Answer World War II
In what sport do Women have 5 majors as compared to the Men's 4?
Answer Golf
Shakespeare's longest play?
Answer Hamlet
Who had a hit with Queen on the single Under Pressure?
Answer David Bowie
To whom is the following epigram attributed: "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing"?
Answer Oscar Wilde
In which year did Windsor Legoland open?
Answer 1996
In which year was the requirement to display tax discs on vehicles in the UK abolished?
Answer 2014
The 'Big Easy' is the nickname of which city in which US state?
Answer New Orleans (Louisiana)
The Globe burned down in 1613 during which play?
Answer Henry VIII (a cannon set the thatch alight)
Which literary character needs the dirt of his home country to remain healthy?
Answer Dracula
Julie Hesmondhalgh played Hayley Cropper in which long-running series?
Answer Coronation Street
The central part of a daffodil shares its name with which musical instrument?
Answer Trumpet
What did the French company Panhard et Levassor manufacture?
Answer Cars
Which former UK PM wrote the 2007 book More Than a Game: The Story of Cricket's Early Years?
Answer Sir John Major
Notting Hill Carnival takes place in which borough?
Answer Kensington and Chelsea
With which flower was horticulturist David Austin (2018) particularly associated?
Answer Rose
What is Oscar Wilde's only novel?
Answer The Picture of Dorian Gray
CH is the postcode for which UK City?
Answer Chester
During which year did the WWI Battle of Amiens take place?
Answer 1918
In which county is the parliamentary constituency of Amber Valley?
Answer Derbyshire
How is Gordon Sumner better known?
Answer Sting
Which tree grows acorns?
Answer Oak
John Willoughby is a character in which Jane Austen novel?
Answer Sense and Sensibility