Quiz questions for seniors: 30 questions with answers, and how to run the round

Thirty questions in four rounds, chosen for a generation born roughly between 1940 and 1965: a round on the fifties, sixties and seventies, a round on everyday life and the household, a round of proverbs to complete, and a closing round of general knowledge, nature and geography at a comfortable level. They are written to be read aloud — at a lunch club, in a care home lounge, on a family Sunday afternoon or in a memory group.

Every answer comes with a line or two of context and, usually, a question for the room: who remembers this, who was there? That second question is the real point. A quiz with older adults has worked when the question about the 1966 World Cup turns into ten minutes of where everybody watched it, not when all thirty questions have been ticked off in twenty minutes. So plan fewer questions than you think you need. A round of eight, with the talking, easily fills three quarters of an hour.

The references lean British, with American ones mixed in where the two countries shared the moment: the Moon landing, Elvis, the Beatles on television. Where a question belongs to one country only, the context says so, so that an American in a British group, or the other way round, has something to add rather than something to miss.

1. Who was the first person to walk on the Moon, and in which year? Neil Armstrong, in July 1969. It was just before eleven at night on the American East Coast and nearly four in the morning in Britain, so a great many people watched it in their dressing gowns. Who stayed up for it, or was woken to see it?

2. Whose coronation, in June 1953, was the reason many British families bought or rented their first television? Queen Elizabeth II's. Neighbours crowded into whichever front room on the street had a set, and many streets held a party. Who watched it, or who in the family still tells the story?

3. Elvis Presley did his military service from 1958 to 1960. In which country was he stationed? West Germany, at Friedberg near Frankfurt, and it was in Germany that he met Priscilla, his future wife. His only time on British soil is generally said to have been a short stop at Prestwick Airport in Scotland on the way home in 1960. Who had an Elvis record, and who thought the hip-shaking was a scandal?

4. In which Liverpool cellar club did the Beatles play hundreds of times before they were famous? The Cavern Club, on Mathew Street. In February 1964 an estimated 73 million Americans watched them on "The Ed Sullivan Show". Who was a Beatles fan, who preferred the Rolling Stones, and who still has the records?

5. Which country won the 1966 World Cup, beating West Germany 4–2 in the final at Wembley? England, with a hat-trick from Geoff Hurst, the only one in a World Cup final until Kylian Mbappé matched it in 2022. Kenneth Wolstenholme's "They think it's all over… it is now" is still quoted. Where did you watch it, and on whose television?

6. Which sporting event was the first programme shown in colour on British television, in July 1967? Wimbledon, on BBC2, the first channel in Europe to broadcast regularly in colour. Colour sets were expensive, and most living rooms stayed black and white for years. Who was the first on the street to have one?

7. Which Volkswagen, nicknamed after an insect, overtook the Ford Model T in 1972 as the most-produced car in the world? The Beetle. It played Herbie in Disney's "The Love Bug" in 1968, and it was still being built in Mexico until 2003. Who learned to drive in one, or in a Mini, a Morris Minor or a Ford Anglia?

8. In which year was the Berlin Wall built, and in which year did it fall? It went up in August 1961 and was opened on the night of 9 November 1989. In between came President Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" in 1963 and Ronald Reagan's "Tear down this wall" in 1987. Where were you when you saw the pictures of people standing on the Wall?

9. Before decimalisation in February 1971, how many pennies were there in a shilling, and how many shillings in a pound? Twelve pennies to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound, which made 240 pennies in all. A shilling was a "bob", sixpence a "tanner", and half a crown was two and six. What could you buy with a tanner?

10. Which toy, a plastic ring kept spinning round the waist, became a craze in 1958? The hula hoop. Hoops of wood or cane had been around for centuries, but the cheap plastic one from the American firm Wham-O sold in the millions within months. Who could keep one going longest, and can anyone still?

11. On a telephone with a rotary dial, which digit took longest to dial? The zero: the dial ran back further for it than for any other number, sending ten clicks down the line. Older numbers often began with letters, too: Scotland Yard was WHItehall 1212, and Glenn Miller sang about PEnnsylvania 6-5000. Who remembers their childhood phone number, or queuing at the red phone box?

12. Who delivered glass bottles of milk to the doorstep, often before anyone was up? The milkman, in Britain usually on a humming electric milk float. Blue tits famously learned to peck through the foil tops to get at the cream. Who remembers leaving the empties out with a note for an extra pint?

13. At how many revolutions per minute did a single play? Forty-five. An LP turned at thirty-three and a third, and the old shellac records at seventy-eight. What was the first record you bought with your own money, and where did you play it?

14. What did a shopkeeper mean by putting something "on the slate" or "on tick"? Letting a regular customer take the goods now and pay later, usually on payday; in America it was "putting it on account". Who remembers the corner shop with the jars of sweets behind the counter and everything weighed out by hand?

15. What were Green Shield Stamps? Trading stamps handed out with shopping and petrol, stuck into little books and swapped for anything from a kettle to a bicycle. Americans collected S&H Green Stamps the same way, and in 1973 the founder of Green Shield turned some of his catalogue shops into Argos. What did your family save their books for?

16. Which day of the week was traditionally washday? Monday; an old rhyme says that those who wash on Monday have all the week to dry. It meant boiling the copper, scrubbing on a washboard and feeding everything through the mangle, until the twin tub came along. Who had to turn the mangle?

Read the first half and let the room finish it, out loud and together if they like. There are no points for speed in this round, and a family or regional version counts as right. After each one it is worth asking whether it is actually true, which is where the best conversations start.

17. "The early bird …" — "… catches the worm." The German version is "Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund": the morning hour has gold in its mouth. Who was an early riser by nature, and who had to become one, for a shift, a paper round or the school bus?

18. "Don't count your chickens …" — "… before they're hatched." Anyone who grew up near a farm knows why: not every egg hatches. Who once counted theirs too early, and what happened?

19. "A stitch in time …" — "… saves nine." It comes from mending clothes, when a small tear sewn up straight away saved a much bigger repair later. Who darned socks, turned collars or let down hems, and who still could?

20. "Many hands …" — "… make light work." A good one to ask about: what did your family do together, whether the washing-up rota, the harvest or the spring clean?

21. "Look after the pennies …" — "… and the pounds will look after themselves." Who had a Post Office savings book or a piggy bank as a child, and what were you saving for?

22. "You can't teach an old dog …" — "… new tricks." Is it true? Plenty of people in the room will have learned something entirely new after sixty: an instrument, a language, video calls with the grandchildren. What was the last new thing you learned?

23. "Every cloud …" — "… has a silver lining." The image goes back to a line by John Milton, written in the 1630s. Who has a story of something that went wrong at the time and turned out for the best?

24. What is the longest river in Great Britain? The Severn, at about 220 miles, rising in the Welsh hills and reaching the sea in the Bristol Channel. The Thames is a close second, and the Shannon in Ireland, counted with its estuary, is longer still. Who has crossed the Severn Bridge, or taken a boat trip on the Thames?

25. Niagara Falls lies on the border between which two countries? The United States and Canada, with New York State on one side and Ontario on the other. It was a classic honeymoon destination, and Marilyn Monroe starred in a film named after it in 1953. Who has been there?

26. How many states are there in the United States? Fifty. The last two, Alaska and Hawaii, both joined in 1959, so anyone at school before then grew up with a flag of forty-eight stars. Who has visited America, or has family there?

27. How many years has a couple been married at their golden wedding anniversary? Fifty. Silver is twenty-five, ruby forty and diamond sixty, and in Britain a couple can receive a card from the King for their sixtieth. Who has celebrated a golden wedding, or danced at one?

28. From which tree do conkers come? The horse chestnut. Children in Britain have played conkers for generations, and a World Conker Championship has been held in Northamptonshire since 1965. Who soaked theirs in vinegar or baked it in the oven to harden it, and was that cheating?

29. Which "star" is often the first to appear in the evening sky, and is not a star at all? Venus, the planet called the evening star, and at other times the morning star. After the Sun and the Moon it is the brightest natural object in the sky. Who has noticed it on a winter walk home?

30. What is the capital of Australia? Canberra, not Sydney, which is the answer most people give first. It was built as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne, and Parliament moved there in 1927. Did anyone in the family emigrate as a "Ten Pound Pom"?

Read each question slowly, and read it twice. Not because the room cannot follow, but because a question lands on the second hearing when the first one happened while the tea was being poured. Then wait. Thirty seconds of silence feels endless to the person at the front and is exactly the time remembering takes; if the room wants a minute, give it a minute.

Play in teams rather than as individuals. Three or four to a table is a good size: nobody is left alone with a wrong answer, the quieter players can whisper instead of guessing out loud, and the table is already telling stories before the answer is read out. Mix the tables so that each has someone who likes to talk.

Never make a show of a wrong answer. Give the right one warmly, without comment on what was guessed, and accept near misses: "the summer we went to Blackpool" is a perfectly good answer to the Moon landing. Many groups keep no score at all, or give a bonus point for the best story, which works well precisely because everybody can win it.

For handouts, print large, in a plain font without flourishes, dark text on light matt paper, one or two questions to a page; around 18 point is a sensible size to start from. Estimation questions are a good addition, because everybody can name a number and nobody is ever completely wrong. And stop early rather than late: after three quarters of an hour, a tea break is worth more than another eight questions.

• Estimation questions, where everyone can answer
• How quiz scoring works

For hearing loss, clarity helps more than volume. Speak slowly and plainly, facing the room so that lips and expressions can be read, and do not stand with a bright window behind you, which puts your face in shadow. Turn off the radio and the television and close the door, because background noise is one of the hardest things for a hearing aid to deal with. Seat anyone who hears poorly at the front, near you, and if the room has a hearing loop or a microphone, use it.

Write the key word of each question large on a flip chart or whiteboard as you read it: "Moon", "shilling", "Niagara". It catches anyone who missed a word, and it helps anyone who finds something written easier to hold on to than something heard.

For poor sight it is the other way round. Read everything aloud, including the answer options if there are any, and describe any picture you show. On a screen, large high-contrast text is not optional. And walk round the room once while you read; you soon notice which table is not catching it.

In care homes and day centres this kind of activity has a name: reminiscence work, or life-story work. It means remembering together, prompted by familiar things such as a photograph, a song from the time, an object from an old kitchen, or a quiz question. The aim is not to test anybody but to give people the chance to talk about their own lives and be listened to. A carer who learns that a resident ran a corner shop for thirty years talks to her differently afterwards.

Questions about youth work especially well, and memory researchers describe why: for most people, memories from the teenage years and early twenties stay unusually vivid, an effect psychologists call the reminiscence bump. That is why a question about 1966 often gets more answers than a question about last year.

It is worth being honest about what a quiz can do. It is not therapy and not a treatment, and it protects nobody from illness. It is a sociable way to keep the mind active, to get people talking, and to have an afternoon in which someone knows something nobody else in the room knew. That is a lot.

Memories are not always cheerful ones. War, evacuation, losing a parent young, the hard years of rationing: a question can touch more than the person asking it expects. Know your group, do not press anyone who would rather not talk, and when a story is a sad one, give it room instead of hurrying on to the next question.

The best questions of all are about the group itself: the local cinema, the factory where half the town worked, the dance hall on a Saturday night. Writing a handful of those takes an evening and repays it many times over.

• How to write good quiz questions

A quiz is one of the few games where grandparents and grandchildren are on level terms: one side knows when the Berlin Wall went up, the other knows how to work the phone. On omequiz one of them, usually the grandchild, opens a room and sends the six-character code. Everyone else types it into a browser on a phone, a tablet or a laptop; there is nothing to install. A room holds up to ten players, so the cousins in another city can join in as well, and voice and video chat are there for anyone who wants them and entirely optional.

One thing to know before you start: the score counts right answers and speed. A fifteen-year-old usually taps faster than her grandmother, even when they both know the answer. So mixed generations play best as mixed teams, a grandparent and a grandchild sharing one device, one reading and one tapping, rather than against each other. When you open the room you choose up to three of the nine categories; history and geography make a good start for a family round.

For a calmer pace, type the questions from this page into your own quiz in the editor, with three wrong options for each, and give every question up to sixty seconds. And for every day there is the daily round of five questions, a small ritual a grandparent and a grandchild can each play on their own and then compare on the phone in the evening.

• Open a room
• Today's five questions
• Quiz questions for the grandchildren, by age

In a lounge or activity room, the big screen is the most useful thing you have. Connect a laptop to the television or the projector with an HDMI cable, and there are three ways to run the round, depending on how much technology the group enjoys.

The simplest: read the questions from this page and put only the key word on the screen, or a picture to go with it. Teams write their answers on paper or call them out. No devices, no Wi-Fi password, nothing to go wrong.

The middle way: type the questions into your own quiz beforehand and play it in quiz-night mode. You run the round without playing yourself; the screen shows the question and the answer options in large type, a counter shows how many have answered, and you reveal the answer when the room is ready. Each table answers on one shared tablet.

The third: everyone who has a phone and wants to play joins on their own, up to ten devices in a room. That suits groups in which most people use a smartphone anyway.

However you run it, set the chairs in a half circle facing the screen, and draw the curtains far enough that no window reflects in it but not so far that the room is too dark to see each other's faces. People who hear poorly read a great deal from lips.

• Hosting a quiz night, start to finish
• History questions with answers
• Geography questions with answers
• General knowledge questions with answers