A ready-to-write board for a team meeting
These 25 original clues give coworkers several ways to contribute: maps, words, science, arts, and reasoning. They do not require company history, personal disclosures, or knowledge available only to long-serving employees. The content is general trivia for a social meeting, not a workplace competency assessment.
- Use three clues from each category for a short 15-question round, or enter all five for a full board.
- Allow 10–15 seconds of team discussion before a captain submits the answer. Treat the timing as a host rule and apply it consistently.
- Rotate the captain after every category. Give a quiet participant a way to contribute through their team without requiring a solo performance.
- Read every clue and display it. For an international group, replace unfamiliar cultural references before play.
- Allow five minutes for setup and a practice clue, about 20 minutes for the board, and five minutes for the ending.
Maps and places
Say place names aloud and accept common English spellings. The higher values ask for more specific recall.
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100 points. Tokyo is the capital of which country?
Reveal answer
Japan
Accept Japan; no prefecture is required.
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200 points. Which continent contains the Andes mountain range?
Reveal answer
South America
The range crosses several countries; the clue asks for the continent.
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300 points. What is the name of the line at zero degrees latitude?
Reveal answer
The equator
Do not confuse latitude with zero degrees longitude.
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400 points. Which river flows through Cairo?
Reveal answer
The Nile
Accept Nile or Nile River.
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500 points. What is the capital of New Zealand?
Reveal answer
Wellington
Auckland is a larger city, but it is not the capital.
Words at work
Use these as a light language round. This set uses English; replace it with an equivalent round if that disadvantages your group.
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100 points. What do the letters ASAP stand for?
Reveal answer
As soon as possible
Accept the complete phrase in any capitalization.
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200 points. What do we call the list of topics planned for a meeting?
Reveal answer
An agenda
Accept meeting agenda.
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300 points. Which word means brief and clearly expressed: concise, hesitant, or enormous?
Reveal answer
Concise
Read all three choices before accepting an answer.
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400 points. What is the term for a word with the opposite meaning of another word?
Reveal answer
An antonym
A synonym has a similar meaning.
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500 points. Which punctuation mark commonly joins the two words in the expression well-known?
Reveal answer
A hyphen
A hyphen joins the words; an apostrophe is a different mark.
Science in everyday life
No specialist work knowledge is needed. Each answer has one specific target.
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100 points. Which chemical element uses the symbol O?
Reveal answer
Oxygen
The symbol is the letter O, not the number zero.
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200 points. What is the process by which plants use light energy to make sugars?
Reveal answer
Photosynthesis
Accept photosynthesis; a detailed chemical equation is not required.
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300 points. Can sound travel through a perfect vacuum?
Reveal answer
No
Sound needs a medium. A vacuum has no matter to carry it.
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400 points. What is the name for a solid changing directly into a gas?
Reveal answer
Sublimation
The clue excludes a liquid stage.
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500 points. What is the SI base unit of electric current?
Reveal answer
The ampere
Accept ampere or amp. The volt measures electric potential difference.
Arts and entertainment
These are stable general-knowledge questions rather than current celebrity news. Swap a clue if it is outside your team's shared cultural frame.
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100 points. Which instrument family includes a snare drum: strings, brass, or percussion?
Reveal answer
Percussion
A snare drum produces sound when struck. Read all three choices before accepting an answer.
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200 points. Who wrote the play Hamlet?
Reveal answer
William Shakespeare
Accept Shakespeare.
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300 points. Who wrote Animal Farm?
Reveal answer
George Orwell
Accept Orwell; this asks for the author, not a character.
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400 points. How many keys are on a standard full-size modern piano?
Reveal answer
88
Accept 88; smaller keyboards can have fewer keys.
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500 points. Which three colors are the primary colors of additive light mixing?
Reveal answer
Red, green, and blue
Accept RGB. The clue says light, not paint.
Reason it out together
These clues deliberately reward sharing a method. Give teams paper and keep the same calculator rule throughout.
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100 points. Three tables each have eight chairs. How many chairs are there altogether?
Reveal answer
24
3 × 8 = 24.
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200 points. What is 15 percent of 200?
Reveal answer
30
10 percent is 20 and 5 percent is 10.
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300 points. What do we call a polygon with eight sides?
Reveal answer
An octagon
Accept octagon; the sides do not have to be equal.
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400 points. A 90-minute session includes a 10-minute break and 5 minutes of introductions. How many minutes remain?
Reveal answer
75 minutes
90 − 10 − 5 = 75.
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500 points. Six people each shake hands with every other person exactly once. How many handshakes occur?
Reveal answer
15
6 × 5 divided by 2 = 15. Each pair is counted once.
15 reserve or swap clues, separate from the 25-clue board
These fifteen are optional replacements, three for each existing category. Do not enter forty clues into the Standard five-by-five board. Replace a clue at the suggested value before play and keep the category names intact.
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100 points. This is the cardinal direction opposite west.
Reveal answer
East
Swap into Maps and places at the stated suggested value. The opposite pair is east and west.
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300 points. This is the direction halfway between north and east.
Reveal answer
Northeast
Swap into Maps and places at the stated suggested value. Accept NE; the clue asks for the intercardinal direction.
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500 points. A map uses 1 centimeter for 8 kilometers. Two and a half centimeters represents this distance.
Reveal answer
20 kilometers
Swap into Maps and places at the stated suggested value. 2.5 × 8 = 20; keep the unit.
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100 points. This is the written record of what was discussed or decided at a meeting.
Reveal answer
Minutes
Swap into Words at work at the stated suggested value. Accept meeting minutes; the word is not asking for elapsed time.
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300 points. This is a date or time by which work is due.
Reveal answer
Deadline
Swap into Words at work at the stated suggested value. Accept due date when the same meaning is clear.
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500 points. This word means a person who receives a message.
Reveal answer
Recipient
Swap into Words at work at the stated suggested value. Accept recipient; the sender is the opposite role.
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100 points. This element has chemical symbol K.
Reveal answer
Potassium
Swap into Science in everyday life at the stated suggested value. K identifies potassium, not krypton, which is Kr.
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300 points. This element has symbol Cu.
Reveal answer
Copper
Swap into Science in everyday life at the stated suggested value. Cu derives from cuprum.
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500 points. This element has atomic number 12 and symbol Mg.
Reveal answer
Magnesium
Swap into Science in everyday life at the stated suggested value. Atomic number counts protons.
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100 points. This term describes a musical piece performed without instrumental accompaniment.
Reveal answer
A cappella
Swap into Arts and entertainment at the stated suggested value. Accept a cappella; spelling need not be exact for a spoken response.
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300 points. This word names the person who writes a play.
Reveal answer
Playwright
Swap into Arts and entertainment at the stated suggested value. Accept playwright.
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500 points. This is the text of an opera or similar dramatic musical work.
Reveal answer
Libretto
Swap into Arts and entertainment at the stated suggested value. Accept libretto; it names the words, not the score.
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100 points. A meeting has 9 attendees and each needs 2 printed pages. This many pages are required.
Reveal answer
18
Swap into Reason it out together at the stated suggested value. 9 × 2 = 18.
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300 points. A project has 8 equal tasks and 3 are complete. This fraction remains.
Reveal answer
Five eighths
Swap into Reason it out together at the stated suggested value. 8 minus 3 = 5 of the original 8.
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500 points. A 48-dollar budget is split in a ratio of 5 to 3. The larger share is this amount.
Reveal answer
30 dollars
Swap into Reason it out together at the stated suggested value. Eight parts total; each is 6 dollars; 5 × 6 = 30.
Make the team contribution visible
Before revealing a reasoning answer, invite the answering captain to give the team's method in one sentence. After a recall answer, ask whether anyone had a useful way to remember it. Keep these contributions optional and unscored. The winner comes from the announced game rules, not the loudest explanation.
- If one person dominates, rotate the spokesperson instead of inventing a score penalty during the game.
- Avoid collecting individual performance scores for an informal social activity.
- For a product-training game, replace this general set with approved product material and a facilitator-reviewed answer key.
Enter the clues and test the response flow
Create a board with the five categories above, then manually add the questions, answers, explanations, and point values. Share the player display, keeping the answer key private. These questions are not automatically imported by the create button.
- In a spoken-answer live room, players buzz in through Quiz Champ and then answer aloud. External meeting chat does not register the game's response.
- In typed mode, the first buzzer submits a typed answer through the game before the host reveals and scores it.
- Run one practice clue with the actual devices. Confirm that the host sees the response and can reveal the answer.
- Keep a separate numerical tie-breaker ready; announce the winner of that extra round separately if the board finishes tied.
- For first-week orientation instead of this social trivia round, use the complete 25-clue onboarding template below. It loads different questions about people, tools and workplace routines; replace its examples for your organization. It does not import this article's 25 questions.