Quizzes

Pathology Pub Quiz 

Suitable for adults 

Love a pub quiz? Run our pathology pub quiz this National Pathology Week! Aimed at medical undergraduates and above, this ready-to-download quiz takes just over an hour (without a break), but we suggest you take your time and embrace the fun. You can find the music round on Spotify by searching 'Pathology pub quiz'.


Add an alternative round

If you've got all evening, extend the quiz with our alternative round ideas. 

Alternative music round

Find a ten letter word related to pathology and find a song that starts with each letter. Play the introduction to each song and ask teams to guess the name of the song and the name of the artist or band (one point for each). For a bonus question, people have to write out the word that the song titles spell out. To make it harder, you can shuffle the order of the songs so that they have to decipher the word for themselves. 

For example:

  • Music - Madonna 
  • I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor 
  • Common People - Pulp 
  • Rock DJ - Robbie Williams 
  • One Way or Another - Blondie
  • Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley 
  • Can't Get You Out of My Head - Kylie Minogue 
  • Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads
  • Purple Rain – Prince
  • Eleanor Rigby – The Beatles

Bonus answer: Microscope

Plasticine Round

If you can get hold of some modelling clay such as plasticine, a plasticine round is a great alternative round to add to the fun. Hand out plasticine to teams before the quiz starts. Then, start the quiz by telling everyone what they have to make with their modelling clay and tell them they have up until the break to make it. Teams make their models during the first half of the quiz, and then place them on top of their team name in the designated place (keep a table free for this, or a mantle piece works well if available). You can either award the winners (and runner-ups) points or a separate prize.

Some examples of things to make with plasticine:

  • a red blood cell
  • a virus
  • the current Health Secretary. 

Art round

A drawing round is simple to run – all you need is extra paper. Simply tell teams at the start that they have until the end of the quiz or the break to draw a picture. You can be quite elaborate with what you ask teams to draw, for example:

  • draw a typical pathologist
  • draw the badgers fighting back against the bovine tuberculosis badger cull.

Fancy dress round

If you want to go all-out with your pathology-themed quiz, ask all participants to dress as a pathogen or something pathology themed for the quiz. Make sure you let everyone know if you're doing this on the invite/event advert. 

Alternatively, if you have access to some basic arts and craft materials, you can ask teams to dress one team member up as a pathogen and give them 10 minutes to make a costume. Some essentials for each team: scissors, card, toilet roll and newspaper. 

Award a prize for best dressed or best team effort. 

ABC of Pathology Quiz

Suitable for children aged 10 and up

The colourful presentation can be adapted for a wide range of audiences – for example schools and youth groups – and can be used with the quiz or separately. The answers and answer sheets are provided for the quiz so you’ve got a ready-made event with hardly any preparation required. Please feel free to add your own questions or additional slides to make the presentation more relevant to you or your audience. There’s also a set of pathology alphabet posters that you can use as hand-outs, display as posters or even make into a deck of ABC pathology cards. 

National Pathology Week Quiz

Suitable for those aged 14 and up 

Here’s a ready-made National Pathology Week quiz! There are four rounds of questions, including a 'true or false' round and a Family Fortunes-style round where you have to guess what answers the public gave. The answers are all included in the presentation and additional notes attached to the slides give you a bit of background information. Please feel free to adapt the quiz, add your own questions or select only a few from those suggested. Answer sheets are also available. 

Other Quizzes

Try some of our other quizzes that members have previously used at careers fairs.