Looking for Alaska
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50 free Looking for Alaska trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Looking for Alaska was John Green's first novel, and for many readers it is still the one that hits hardest. Miles Halter arrives at Culver Creek, a boarding school in the American South, obsessed with famous last words and hungry for a bigger life. He finds a roommate who calls himself the Colonel, a circle of gifted pranksters, and Alaska Young, who is funny, brilliant and impossible to work out. This quiz follows the book the way it is built: the Before, the night everything changes, and the After. Expect questions on characters and nicknames, the pranks and their targets, the labyrinth riddle, and the clues the friends piece together. There are also questions on how the novel came to be written, the prizes and the bans, and its long road to the screen. It works as revision for a class test or a reading quiz, and as a challenge for anyone who has read the book more than once. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which ironic nickname does roommate Chip Martin give skinny Miles Halter in Looking for Alaska?
Pudge
Pudge sticks for the whole novel, even though Miles is rail thin. Chip, who hands out everyone's nicknames, calls himself the Colonel.
Q 02Which bird stalking the Culver Creek campus bites Miles on the backside in Looking for Alaska?
A swan
A swan guards the grounds like a watchdog for the dean, and it nips Miles as he flees on Barn Night. John Green based it on a real bird at his old school.
Q 03In Looking for Alaska, which performer do the friends hire to pose as a Speaker Day professor?
A male stripper
A male stripper named Maxx plays a visiting expert on teenage sexuality, then undresses mid-speech. The prank honours Alaska, and even the dean admits it was clever.
Q 04In Looking for Alaska, what is new boy Miles wrapped in before being thrown into the school lake?
Duct tape
Duct tape binds him like a mummy, so he has to wriggle ashore. His attackers blame his roommate's circle for getting a friend expelled.
Q 05What does Miles leave home to seek in Looking for Alaska, borrowing a French writer's reputed dying phrase?
The Great Perhaps
The Great Perhaps is what he hopes boarding school will offer after a friendless spell at home. Only two acquaintances turn up to his leaving party.
Q 06Which object was added beneath the smoke on Looking for Alaska's first cover to reassure bookshops?
A candle
A candle was added because some book chains refused to display a cover that seemed to show cigarette smoke. Later paperbacks took it away again.
Q 07Which real event, said to split history in two, shaped Looking for Alaska's Before and After halves?
The 9/11 attacks
The 9/11 attacks gave John Green his structure: alone in his Chicago flat, he heard newscasters say life would now be seen as before or after that morning.
Q 08After years as a stalled film, which streaming service turned Looking for Alaska into a miniseries?
Hulu
Hulu ordered eight episodes in 2018 from the creator of The O.C., who had first hoped to film the book more than a decade earlier.
Q 09Which later John Green novel, about two teens with cancer, made Looking for Alaska a bestseller?
The Fault in Our Stars
The Fault in Our Stars made its author a household name in 2012, and his debut finally reached the New York Times list that year, seven years after release.
Q 10In Looking for Alaska, which party game leads to Miles and Alaska kissing on the night she dies?
Truth or Dare
Truth or Dare begins and ends with Alaska daring Miles to kiss her, while both are seeing other people. She breaks off, saying she is too tired.
Q 11In which US state is Culver Creek, the boarding school Miles Halter joins in Looking for Alaska?
Alabama
Alabama is where the author himself boarded as a teenager, at a school near Birmingham that he reshaped into Culver Creek.
Q 12Which US state does Miles Halter leave behind to board at Culver Creek in Looking for Alaska?
Florida
Florida is also where John Green grew up, in Orlando, before he too went away to boarding school at fifteen.
Q 13What nickname do Culver Creek students give Mr. Starnes, the strict dean in Looking for Alaska?
The Eagle
The Eagle is feared for a withering stare known as the Look of Doom, and he is a regular target of the friends' pranks.
Q 21Which French writer's reputed last words send Miles Halter off to boarding school in Looking for Alaska?
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a physician and scholar of the 1500s, later best known for grotesque satires about giants.
Q 22In Looking for Alaska, what does Alaska decide the labyrinth is, rather than life or death?
Suffering
Suffering is the maze everyone is trapped in, she tells Miles during their Thanksgiving alone on campus. His final essay argues that forgiveness is the way out.
Q 23In Looking for Alaska, whose late-night phone call wakes Alaska shortly before her fatal drive?
Jake
Jake is her boyfriend at university, the reason she keeps things with Miles platonic. His call seemed harmless, so the friends must look elsewhere for what upset her.
Q 14In Looking for Alaska, what name is given to the wealthy clique who dunk Miles in the lake?
Weekday Warriors
Weekday Warriors earn the name by going home every weekend, which sets them apart from scholarship boarders like the Colonel.
Q 15Whose reputed last words, about a labyrinth, does Alaska quote to Miles in Looking for Alaska?
Simón Bolívar
Simón Bolívar led much of South America to independence from Spain but died disillusioned in 1830. Alaska promises Miles a girlfriend if he can work out the riddle.
Q 16In Looking for Alaska, what killed Alaska's mother while her eight-year-old daughter looked on?
An aneurysm
An aneurysm felled her as the frightened child froze instead of phoning for help. Alaska has blamed herself ever since.
Q 17Which flowers do police find in Alaska Young's car after the fatal crash in Looking for Alaska?
White tulips
White tulips were meant for her mother's grave, her friends conclude. She had forgotten the anniversary of the death until a doodle by the phone reminded her.
Q 18What is a bufriedo, the cafeteria favourite of Culver Creek students in Looking for Alaska?
A deep-fried burrito
A deep-fried burrito is a staple of the Culver Creek diet, and it is over a plate of them that Miles first meets Takumi.
Q 19Which country does Lara Buterskaya, Miles's girlfriend in Looking for Alaska, originally come from?
Romania
Romania is where Lara lived before emigrating, and she still speaks with a mild accent. Alaska sets her up with Miles as her side of a bargain.
Q 20On Barn Night in Looking for Alaska, what do Miles and Takumi set off to lure the dean away?
Fireworks
Fireworks keep the dean chasing noises in the dark while the others carry out the real mischief. The same trick later covers Alaska's last drive off campus.
Q 24In Looking for Alaska, what kind of home does the Colonel share with his mother, Dolores?
A trailer
A trailer is where Miles and Alaska eat Thanksgiving dinner, and the Colonel dreams of one day buying Dolores a grand house.
Q 25In Looking for Alaska, what colour does bully Kevin Richman's hair turn after the Barn Night prank?
Blue
Blue dye is slipped into his hair products by Lara, payback for the night he and his friends dumped Miles in the lake.
Q 26In Looking for Alaska, the hat Takumi wears on prank nights is named after which animal?
A fox
A fox hat was borrowed from real life: John Green had a Filipino school friend who wore one while pulling pranks.
Q 27Where did Alaska Young go with her mother on what she calls the best day of her life?
The zoo
The zoo visit is the happiest memory she shares when the friends swap their best and worst moments over wine at their hideout.
Q 28Which subject does the elderly Dr. Hyde teach at Culver Creek in Looking for Alaska?
World Religions
World Religions is where Dr. Hyde ejects Miles for daydreaming out of the window, then urges him to be present in every moment.
Q 29What injury ends Miles's first date with Lara, at a basketball game, in Looking for Alaska?
A concussion
A concussion follows when a rival player, nicknamed the Beast, hurls the ball at Miles after the Colonel's heckling. The evening ends in hospital.
Q 30Instead of chapter numbers, Looking for Alaska counts which unit of time around the tragedy?
Days
Days are the measure, running from 136 before to 136 after, so the whole story pivots on a single night.