Common Cold Trivia
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94 free Common Cold trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This common cold trivia quiz covers the most frequent infectious disease in humans, from the 200-plus viruses that cause it to the folk remedies that don't. It asks how many colds the average adult and child catch each year, how long the virus can survive on a doorknob, why symptoms are really your own immune response, why there is still no vaccine, and what actually shortens a cold (very little, and only if you start early). It also digs into the science and the history: the Ebers papyrus, the 1914 Leipzig experiment that proved a filterable agent was to blame, the volunteers who took 'holidays' at Britain's Common Cold Unit in Salisbury, the discovery there of the first human coronavirus, the temperature the main cold virus prefers, the physiology of sneezing, and the origins of 'bless you', chicken soup as 'Jewish penicillin', Kleenex and VapoRub. Colds versus flu, antibiotics, decongestants and the enormous economic cost round it out. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's articles on the common cold, rhinovirus, the Common Cold Unit, sneezing and the remedies, and each explanation adds one further fact. Good for biology students, pub quiz science rounds and anyone currently sniffling their way through a box of tissues.
30 of 94 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly how many different viruses are known to cause the common cold?
About 200
About 200 is the usual count: more than 200 viruses from several families can cause a cold, which is how the average adult manages to catch two or three of them every year.
Q 02Which scientist found the germ-killing enzyme lysozyme in nasal mucus in the early 1920s?
Alexander Fleming
Alexander Fleming had a cold when he put some of his own nasal mucus on a culture plate and found that it cleared the bacteria around it; he later detected the same enzyme in tears and saliva.
Q 03According to a British wartime slogan, coughs and sneezes spread what?
Diseases
Diseases completed the rhyme on government posters telling Britons to trap their germs in a handkerchief; the slogan had first been used in the United States during the 1918 flu pandemic.
Q 04How long does the cough that comes with a cold last on average?
18 days
18 days is the average found when studies of acute coughs were pooled, yet adults surveyed for the same review expected such a cough to be gone in about a week.
Q 05What mainly produces the symptoms of a cold?
The body's own immune response
The body's own immune response, not damage done by the virus, drives most cold symptoms: chemical signals released to fight the infection cause the swelling, mucus and sneezing.
Q 06Contrary to popular belief, what does green nasal mucus tell you about an infection?
Nothing about its cause
Nothing about its cause: mucus turns green from an iron-rich enzyme in the white blood cells that flood the nose during any infection, whether viral or bacterial.
Q 07Which symptom is more typical of a common cold than of influenza?
A runny nose
A runny nose is typical of a cold but less common in influenza; flu comes on quickly with high fever and aching muscles, while a cold builds over two or three days, so sudden onset is the usual sign of flu.
Q 08Why is there no vaccine for the common cold?
Too many fast-changing viruses
Too many fast-changing viruses stand in the way: colds come from several unrelated virus families that mutate quickly, so immunity to one leaves the others untouched.
Q 09Which supplement, taken as lozenges soon after the first symptoms, may shorten a cold?
Zinc
Zinc lozenges begun soon after symptoms start shortened colds in some trials, though reviews disagree on recommending them; zinc nasal gels were withdrawn in 2009 after a safety warning from the FDA.
Q 10What has regular vitamin C been shown to do for colds?
Shorten them slightly
Shorten them slightly is all it does: pooled trials found colds about 8 percent shorter in adults but no fewer, except among marathon runners and soldiers on Arctic exercises, whose risk halved.
Q 11Much of the relief people get from cold remedies is put down to which effect?
The placebo effect
The placebo effect does much of the work: in a review of eight cough-medicine trials, about 85 percent of the improvement was matched in patients given a dummy treatment.
Q 12Honey, a guideline remedy for coughs, is unsafe for babies under one because it can cause which illness?
Botulism
Botulism is the danger: honey can carry bacterial spores that take hold in a baby's immature gut yet rarely trouble older children and adults, so NICE lists honey as a cough remedy only for those over one.
Q 13What do antibiotics do for someone with a common cold?
Nothing but risk side effects
Q 21Which ancient text, written over 3,500 years ago, describes cold symptoms and treatments?
The Egyptian Ebers papyrus
The Egyptian Ebers papyrus, copied around 1550 BC, mixes herbal recipes with incantations meant to drive out disease-causing demons, and its cold cures show how long people have been trying to treat the illness.
Q 22Which old word for a streaming head cold comes from the Greek for 'to flow down'?
Catarrh
Catarrh comes from the Greek katarrhein, 'to flow down'; the plainer name 'cold' took over from the 16th century because the symptoms resembled the effects of exposure to cold weather.
Q 23Near which English city was the Medical Research Council's Common Cold Unit based from 1946?
Salisbury
Nothing but risk side effects: antibiotics kill bacteria, not the viruses behind a cold, so they bring no benefit while exposing the patient to their usual side effects and feeding antibiotic resistance.
Q 14Which of these oral cold-remedy ingredients has evidence of easing a stuffy nose in adults?
Pseudoephedrine
Pseudoephedrine, taken by mouth, measurably reduces nasal congestion in adults; its rival phenylephrine, which replaced it on many open shelves, was judged ineffective orally by a 2023 FDA advisory panel.
Q 15Under what conditions is moderate exercise considered safe with a cold?
If symptoms are confined to the head
If symptoms are confined to the head, such as sneezing or a sore throat, light to moderate exercise is generally considered fine; fever, chest congestion, widespread aches or fatigue are signs to rest instead.
Q 16What is the estimated basic reproduction number of common cold viruses?
2 to 3
2 to 3 is the estimated basic reproduction number, meaning each infected person passes a cold to two or three others on average in a susceptible population; measles, by contrast, runs to 12 to 18.
Q 17Which complication follows roughly a third of colds in infants and toddlers?
An ear infection
An ear infection is so common at that age because a small child's eustachian tubes are shorter and more level than an adult's, giving germs from the nose and throat an easy path to the middle ear.
Q 18Should a mother with a cold keep nursing her baby?
Yes, the virus is not passed in breast milk
Yes, the virus is not passed in breast milk; the milk instead carries the mother's antibodies, and by the time she has symptoms the baby has already been exposed through the air and touch.
Q 19A cold outbreak at an Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation was blamed on what?
A carrier or contaminated object
A carrier or contaminated object was suspected, the carrier being someone with no symptoms: six of the twelve men on Adelaide Island caught colds in turn with no outside contact, and the base's huskies were ruled out.
Q 20In a study of 1,100 airline passengers, did recirculated cabin air spread more colds than fresh air?
No, about the same
No, about the same: passengers flying from San Francisco to Denver reported colds at similar rates whether their plane used fresh or recirculated air, though sitting close to others does appear to matter.
Salisbury, in Wiltshire, was the home of the Common Cold Unit, which occupied the Harvard Hospital at Harnham Down, a wartime gift from Harvard University and the American Red Cross.
Q 24How did the Common Cold Unit present a stay at its facility in adverts recruiting volunteers?
As an unusual holiday opportunity
As an unusual holiday opportunity: volunteers got ten days of free board, pocket money and country walks, in return for nasal drops that might carry a cold virus and isolation from everyone but a flat-mate.
Q 25How many scientific papers did the Common Cold Unit produce between 1946 and 1989?
1,006
1,006 scientific papers came out of the unit in 43 years, covering transmission, immunity and trials of remedies, before it closed in 1989 having found no cure.
Q 26The first human member of which virus family was isolated at Britain's Common Cold Unit in the 1960s?
Coronaviruses
Coronaviruses entered human medicine with strain B814, isolated at the unit by David Tyrrell's team and reported in 1965; June Almeida's electron micrographs showed the crown-like fringe that gave the family its name.
Q 27At which American university did Winston Price isolate the first rhinovirus, from nurses with colds, in 1953?
Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins virologist Winston Price took nasal samples from nurses with a mild respiratory illness and isolated what he named the JH virus, after the university; his findings were published in 1956.
Q 28Compared with the body's core, what temperature do the commonest cold viruses prefer?
Slightly cooler
Slightly cooler suits them: they multiply best at about 33 °C, as found inside the nose, and less well at the core's 37 °C; a Yale study of mouse airway cells found the antiviral defence weaker at the lower temperature.
Q 29The cold decongestant whose US sales were restricted by a 2005 law can be turned into which illegal drug?
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine can be made from the decongestant, so the 2005 law limited how much customers could buy, and many cold remedies on open shelves switched to a different active ingredient.
Q 30What is the medical term for a sneeze?
Sternutation
Sternutation comes from the Latin sternuere, 'to sneeze'; the same root named the 'sternutatory' gases, arsenic compounds that caused violent sneezing, which Germany added to its chemical weapons in 1917.