Wicky
40 Top Trivia Questions to Ask
Top Trivia Questions to Ask Part 1
1) How many hours of daylight would one experience on the Tropic of Capricorn on the September equinox?
A) 10
B) 12
C) 14
D) 16
Answer: B
2) Manhattan’s eight-story building was the world’s tallest building when it opened in 1913. What five-and-dime chain owned it?
Answer: Woolworth’s; it is still the Woolworth Building.
3) Who was the author of the book Hamlet?
Answer: William Shakespeare
4) Who was the first U.S. Attorney General?
Answer: Edmund Randolph
5) Which country is farthest south?
A) New Zealand
B) South Africa
C) Australia
D) Uruguay
Answer: A
6) The drug mecamylamine serves this purpose:
A) Kills bacteria
B) Increases adrenalin flow
C) Fights glaucoma
D) Lowers blood pressure
Promotes hair growth
Answer: D
It uses a ganglionic blocking agent to effect a rapid lowering of high blood pressure.
7) What is the minimum wind speed of a hurricane?
A) 54 mph
B) 74 mph
C) 94 mph
D) 114 mph
Answer: B
8) In business, a company’s first sale of stock to the public is known as an IPO, which is an acronym for what?
Answer: initial public offering
9) Tenerife, Fuerteventura, and Lanzarote are part of which territory?
A) Canary Islands
B) Maldives
C) Seychelles
D) Azores
Answer: A
10) Which of the following is the name of a popular snack food?
A) Goldfish
B) Seahorses
C) Manatees
D) Sand Dollars
Answer: A
11) Which colonial power held Iraq in the decade prior to independence in 1932?
A) Turkey
B) Portugal
C) France
D) United Kingdom
Answer: D
12) Which film is not about a blind woman?
A) Jennifer 8
B) Wait Until Dark
C) Awakenings
D) A Patch of Blue
E) See No Evil
Answer: C
“Awakenings” stars Robert DeNiro as a man who awakens from a coma.
13) What are the first five letters of the Greek alphabet?
A) Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon
B) Alpha, omega, gamma, phi, delta
C) Omega, pi, theta, beta, delta
Answer: A
14) Which country ceased being a monarchy in 1974?
A) Spain
B) Brazil
C) Luxembourg
D) Greece
E) Philippines
Answer: D
The republic now has a president and a premier responsible to a 300-member parliament.
15) What other British naturalist, a contemporary of Darwin’s, is considered the co-discoverer of natural selection?
Answer: Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). He called it “survival of the fittest.”
Top Trivia Questions to Ask Part 2
16) The ancient city of Tenochtitlan was constructed on an island in Lake Texcoco by which civilization?
Answer: The Aztecs
17) Which internal organ stores and concentrates bile and functions in fat digestion?
A) Liver
B) Gall bladder
C) Appendix
D) Thyroid
Answer: B
18) Who was the only heavyweight boxing champion to end his career undefeated?
Answer: Rocky Marciano
When he retired from boxing in 1956, heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano had a professional record of 49 victories and no defeats or draws. He had held the world championship for four years.
19) The first four planets in order from the sun are:
A) Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
B) Mercury, Earth, Neptune, Mars
C) Earth, Saturn, Venus, Mars
Answer: A
20) What radio personality was the original voice of Shaggy on the Scooby-Doo cartoons?
Answer: Casey Kasem
21) Water boils on Mount Everest at a temperature less than 100 degrees Celsius. This is because:
A) Mount Everest is always cold therefore all reactions occur at lower temperatures
B) There is less atmospheric pressure preventing the escape of gas bubbles from the water
C) Water always boils at the same temperature no matter where it is on earth
Answer: B
22) Dogs have a strange small toe above their front paws. What is this toe called?
A) Baby toe
B) Dewclaw
C) Mandible
Answer: B
That useless little toe is called the dewclaw, for reasons that remain obscure. A mandible is a part of an insect’s mouth, or the lower jaw of a vertebrate if you want to get technical. Only babies have baby toes.
23) Pick the correct statement:
A) Products are the result of chemical reactions.
B) Reactants are the result of chemical reactions.
C) Reagents result from chemical reactions.
Answer: A
24) France entered this conflict on the side of the U.S.:
A) Spanish-American War
B) War of 1812
C) Mexican War
D) American Revolution
E) Crimean War
Answer: D
The Americans were joined by the French in defeating the British at Yorktown in 1781.
25) One function of hydrochloric acid in the stomach is to:
A) Kill bacteria
B) Absorb water into the bloodstream
C) Break down oils
Answer: A
26) Which Shakespeare character assumed the name Balthazar when she handled a legal case?
A) Portia
B) Iago
C) Seneca
Answer: A
27) What was used to conduct the orchestra before the baton was introduced in the early 19th century?
Answer: Violin bows
28) In fashion, the material cashmere is derived from the wool of which animal?
Answer: Goat
29) What is colcannon?
Answer: An Irish dish of mashed potatoes and cabbage.
30) Which university is home to the oldest medical school in the U.S.?
Answer: University of Pennsylvania
Top Trivia Questions to Ask Part 3
31) How many dynasties had there been in Egypt prior to 395 A.D. when the Roman Empire divided?
A) 25
B) 19
C) 32
D) 15
Answer: C
Rulers of this dynasty included Ptolemy I-XV, with Queens Cleopatra I-VII. After the last of the Cleopatras, Egypt came under direct Roman rule. After the Roman Empire divided in AD 395, Egypt was controlled by the Byzantine Empire until the Arab conquest in AD 641.
32) Where is the Gobi desert?
Answer: The Gobi desert is a desert and semidesert region of Central Asia stretching across the Mongolian People’s Republic and the Inner Mongolia region of China. Its total area is about 500,000 square miles.
33) What state is John F. Kennedy buried in?
A) Virginia
B) Connecticut
C) Massachusetts
D) Texas
Answer: A
34) What name is given to an error in a computer program?
Answer: Bug
35) What famous Sydney house was built by Henry Browne Hayes in 1803?
Answer: Vaucluse House
36) Who authored such tales as “White Fang,” “Call of the Wild” and “The Sea Wolf”?
A) Stephen Crane
B) Jack London
C) Rudyard Kipling
D) Stephen King
E) Ernest Hemingway
Answer: B
He was a sailor, miner and war correspondent; like him, his work was adventurous and brutal.
37) What is the highest point in England’s Peak District?
Answer: Kinder Scout
38) What color is the Circle Line on London underground maps?
Answer: Yellow
39) The laws of the United Kingdom are based on a written constitution kept at the Houses of Parliament.
A) True
B) False
Answer: B
40) In 1961 Freedom Riders (black and white) traveled around the South in buses, riding from Washington, D.C., to Jackson, Mississippi, where they were arrested and imprisoned. What was the purpose of the Freedom Rides?
A) To test a court decision that declared segregation illegal in bus stations that were open to interstate travel
B) To support Rosa Parks, who was jailed for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger
C) To transport protesters to and from the March on Washington
Answer: A
The Freedom Riders, both black and white, traveled around the South in buses to test the effectiveness of a 1960 Supreme Court decision (Boynton v. Virginia). This ruling declared that segregation was illegal in bus stations that were open to interstate travel. The 1961 Freedom Rides, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality, met with resistance and inspired dozens more Freedom Rides. Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 after refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. Her action led to the Montgomery bus strike, which was the first large-scale, organized protest against segregation that used nonviolent tactics.
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