Pentatonix
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50 free Pentatonix trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Pentatonix turned a cappella from a campus pastime into a chart force. A group of school friends and two late recruits won a television singing contest in 2011, lost their record deal almost at once, and then built one of the biggest music followings online with nothing but their voices. This quiz covers the whole story: how the members found each other, the season of The Sing-Off that launched them, the Grammy-winning arrangements, the holiday albums that made them a seasonal fixture, the covers and collaborations fans replay most, and the group's turns in film and television. Solo projects and line-up changes are in here too. It is written for PTX fans of every level. The early questions are ones a casual listener can reason out, and the later sets reward people who know the EPs, the side projects and the guest spots. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up a story even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Pentatonix's five original members first met as a complete group at what point ahead of their Sing-Off audition?
The day before
The day before was all the time the full line-up had, because the show wanted groups of five or more and the trio had to recruit two strangers. They won the whole season anyway.
Q 02Kevin Olusola caught Pentatonix's eye with a viral video of himself beatboxing while playing which instrument?
Cello
Cello and beatboxing at once is a style Kevin Olusola calls celloboxing, and his 2011 clip of the piece Julie-O went viral. Scott Hoying saw it and asked him to join.
Q 03Pentatonix won its first Grammy for an a cappella medley of songs by which French electronic duo?
Daft Punk
Daft Punk got the tribute in a 2013 video that drew ten million views in its first week. The arrangement made Pentatonix the first a cappella act to win the Grammy for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella.
Q 04Pentatonix won a country Grammy for an a cappella version of which song, recorded with its writer Dolly Parton?
Jolene
Jolene earned Dolly Parton a Grammy more than four decades after she first released it, having been nominated for the same song twice in the 1970s without winning. Pentatonix also sang it with her and Miley Cyrus on The Voice.
Q 05Scott Hoying and Mitch Grassi of Pentatonix launched which comedy and music YouTube channel as a duo?
Superfruit
Superfruit began after the two sat in an IHOP planning separate channels and decided to share one instead. Hoying says the name came from his bandmate's random mind.
Q 06In the film Pitch Perfect 2, Pentatonix appears as the a cappella team representing which country?
Canada
Canada was the flag Pentatonix sang under at the film's world championship, even though every member is American. The 2015 cameo set them against the Barden Bellas.
Q 07Pentatonix's hit cover of Hallelujah, filmed in the Mojave Desert, is a song written by which singer-songwriter?
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen first released the song in 1984 and watched other singers turn it into a standard. He died seventeen days after Pentatonix put out its version in October 2016.
Q 08Pentatonix's 2019 recording of Do You Hear What I Hear? features archive vocals from which late singer?
Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston recorded the carol in 1987 for the album A Very Special Christmas, and her vocal was set inside a new Pentatonix arrangement seven years after her death.
Q 09Pentatonix finished third on the ninth season of The Masked Singer performing under which costume name?
California Roll
California Roll put all five singers in costumes of their own, which made Pentatonix the largest group contestant the show had seen. They reached the semi-finals before being unmasked.
Q 10Which 2014 Pentatonix album became the highest-charting holiday album by a group in more than fifty years?
That's Christmas to Me
That's Christmas to Me peaked at number two and passed a million sales by the end of the year, when only three albums of any genre had sold more. Its title track is the one original song on it.
Q 11Pentatonix's three founding singers were schoolmates at Martin High School in which Texas city?
Arlington
Arlington gave the trio its start when a cover they entered in a local radio contest lost but won over their school. Two of them later quit college to audition for The Sing-Off.
Q 12Pentatonix won the third season of The Sing-Off in 2011 on which American television network?
NBC
NBC aired the a cappella contest, whose winners took $200,000 and a recording contract. The label dropped Pentatonix soon afterwards, so the group built its audience online instead.
Q 13Which original Pentatonix member left the group in 2017, citing the strain of touring far from family?
Avi Kaplan
Q 21Pentatonix beatboxer Kevin Olusola finished his pre-med requirements at which Ivy League university?
Yale
Yale is where a pre-med mentor told Kevin Olusola that medicine would always be there if music failed. He graduated in 2011 and met his future bandmates within two weeks.
Q 22Kevin Olusola showed off his fluency in which language when Pentatonix guested on an overseas edition of The Sing-Off?
Mandarin
Mandarin came from two spells of study in Beijing during his college years. On the Chinese show the group also covered Tian Mi Mi, a song made famous by Teresa Teng.
Q 23Pentatonix founder Scott Hoying heard about The Sing-Off through SoCal VoCals, his a cappella group at which university?
USC
Avi Kaplan sang his last Pentatonix show at a Vermont fair in September 2017 and then turned to folk music. He had put out his first solo songs months earlier as Avriel & the Sequoias.
Q 14Which Berklee-trained singer joined Pentatonix in 2017 as the group's new bass vocalist?
Matt Sallee
Matt Sallee started singing at four in the choir of the Maryland church where his father was pastor, and at college he joined the a cappella group Pitch Slapped. His first Pentatonix recordings were for a deluxe holiday reissue.
Q 15Pentatonix was the opening act on which American Idol winner's 2015 tour, cut short for vocal rest?
Kelly Clarkson
Kelly Clarkson brought Pentatonix back out during her own set to sing Heartbeat Song with her. Her doctors then ordered vocal rest, and the remaining Piece by Piece Tour dates were cancelled.
Q 16Pentatonix teamed with which violinist on a prize-winning cover of the Imagine Dragons song Radioactive?
Lindsey Stirling
Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix won Response of the Year for the 2013 video at the first YouTube Music Awards. She worked with the group again in 2014 on the EP PTX, Vol. III.
Q 17Pentatonix's second Grammy honored its arrangement of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, a piece by which composer?
Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovsky gave the fairy's dance in The Nutcracker to the celesta, a keyboard with a bell-like tone that Pentatonix had to imitate with voices alone.
Q 18Which cover from Pentatonix's 2014 holiday album debuted and peaked at number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100?
Mary, Did You Know?
Mary, Did You Know? grew out of questions Mark Lowry scripted for his church's Christmas program in 1984, and its music came seven years later. Pentatonix's version topped Billboard's Holiday Digital Songs chart.
Q 19Scott Hoying of Pentatonix finished tenth in 2025 on which television competition series?
Dancing with the Stars
Dancing with the Stars paired him with professional Rylee Arnold for its thirty-fourth season, and they lasted into the sixth week. During the run he announced that he and his husband were expecting their first child.
Q 20Kirstin Maldonado of Pentatonix made her Broadway debut in 2018 playing Lauren in which musical?
Kinky Boots
Kinky Boots put her on stage beside singer Jake Shears and comedian Wayne Brady. She had studied musical theatre on a full scholarship before leaving college to form Pentatonix.
USC is where Scott Hoying was studying popular music performance when a fellow SoCal VoCals singer told him about the show. He dropped out in the hope of winning it.
Q 24Which boy-band singer hosted The Sing-Off during the 2011 season that Pentatonix won?
Nick Lachey
Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees stayed on as host for a season that had grown from ten groups to sixteen, split into two brackets so that only half sang each week.
Q 25Which singer-songwriter joined the judges of The Sing-Off for the season Pentatonix won, replacing Nicole Scherzinger?
Sara Bareilles
Sara Bareilles judged only that one season, taking the chair when Scherzinger left for The X Factor. She sat beside Ben Folds and Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men.
Q 26Pentatonix closed the 2011 finale of The Sing-Off by singing which 1980s rock anthem as its victory song?
Eye of the Tiger
Eye of the Tiger, the Survivor hit, was the winners' song after Pentatonix beat a sixteen-voice college group and an eight-piece from Denver in the final.
Q 27Which Ivy League a cappella group finished second to Pentatonix on the 2011 season of The Sing-Off?
Dartmouth Aires
Dartmouth Aires put sixteen singers on stage against Pentatonix's five, and bowed out with Somewhere from West Side Story as their farewell number.
Q 28The trio who founded Pentatonix first covered which Lady Gaga hit to try to win a meeting with the Glee cast?
Telephone
Telephone did not win the local radio contest, but the trio's version made their name around school and then drew attention on YouTube.
Q 29Pentatonix signed with which major label in 2014 after two years of EPs on the small Madison Gate imprint?
RCA Records
RCA Records took the group on after Epic, a sister label, had dropped it soon after The Sing-Off. The first RCA release gathered the early EPs into an album for Japan.
Q 30Which holiday song from the deluxe PTXmas took Pentatonix to number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100?
Little Drummer Boy
Little Drummer Boy was one of two tracks added for the 2013 reissue, and it also reached number one on Billboard's Holiday 100 chart.