Survivor: Cook Islands
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50 free Survivor: Cook Islands trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Survivor: Cook Islands is a season fans still argue about. It opened with a tribe format so contentious that sponsors and politicians weighed in before a single episode had aired, then turned into one of the show's great underdog stories when a mutiny left four castaways facing eight. This quiz covers the whole season: which numbered season it is and where it falls in the show's run, the starting tribes and the twists that reshaped them, Exile Island, the Aitu Four's unbeaten streak, the jury's verdict and the endgame change that later seasons kept. It also follows the cast afterwards, including the players who came back to compete again. It is written for viewers who watched in 2006 and want to test their memory, and for newer fans working back through the seasons that introduced the show's best-known returning players.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Survivor: Cook Islands caused an uproar before it aired by first dividing its four tribes on what basis?
Ethnicity
Ethnicity split the cast into African American, Asian American, Latino and white tribes, an arrangement that lasted only six days before a shuffle into two mixed tribes.
Q 02Which management consultant from the Aitu Four won Survivor: Cook Islands by a single jury vote?
Yul Kwon
Yul Kwon never won an individual immunity challenge; his alliance swept the final four places and the jury narrowly preferred his strategy to the runner-up's challenge record.
Q 03Survivor: Cook Islands was the first season to end with what change to the Final Tribal Council?
Three finalists
Three finalists faced a nine-person jury instead of the usual two facing seven, a change the last four players learned about only on Day 38.
Q 04The eventual winner of Survivor: Cook Islands came back from his only trip to Exile Island secretly holding what?
A hidden immunity idol
A hidden immunity idol, made to look like a broken compass, could that season be played after the votes were read, so nobody could vote its holder out while he kept it.
Q 05A deadlocked vote at the final four of Survivor: Cook Islands was settled by which tiebreaker, lasting over an hour?
Fire-making
Fire-making dragged on because neither woman could raise a flame with flint; both were finally handed matches, and one of them used up her whole box.
Q 06Survivor: Cook Islands, first shown on CBS in September 2006, is which numbered season of the American series?
Thirteenth
Thirteenth in the run, Cook Islands arrived only six years after the show began, because CBS usually staged two seasons a year.
Q 07Ozzy Lusth lost the Survivor: Cook Islands jury vote but was voted fan favorite, a title that won him what?
A new car
A new car, a Mercury Mariner, was his consolation prize at the reunion after five individual immunity wins had carried him to the final vote.
Q 08Survivor: Cook Islands was filmed in a self-governing Pacific nation that is in free association with which country?
New Zealand
New Zealand gives most Cook Islanders its citizenship, though the islands run their own affairs; filming took place around the lagoon of Aitutaki.
Q 09After a mutiny left Aitutaki outnumbered eight to four in Survivor: Cook Islands, how did the tribe fare in challenges?
It won every one
It won every one of the four tribal challenges that followed, forcing the larger Rarotonga tribe to vote out three of its own before the merge.
Q 10Which state was home to 13 of the 20 castaways who started Survivor: Cook Islands?
California
California supplied nearly two-thirds of the cast, and about 85 percent of the players had been recruited by producers rather than applying on their own.
Q 11Which attorney reached the Final Tribal Council of Survivor: Cook Islands yet received no jury votes at all?
Becky Lee
Becky Lee became the first person in Survivor history to face the final jury and be shut out, as jurors saw her as following her closest ally's lead.
Q 12The premiere of Survivor: Cook Islands has a 15-word title quoting a castaway's complaint about which animals?
Chickens
Chickens that a tribemate let escape from the Rarotonga camp provoked Jonathan Penner's outburst, and no Survivor episode had ever been given a longer title.
Q 13Which boxer finished sixth in Survivor: Cook Islands, her debut, and won a later season two years afterwards?
Parvati Shallow
Q 21Which of the four starting tribes in Survivor: Cook Islands won the opening challenge and produced the winner?
Puka Puka
Puka Puka placed first in both challenges it ever entered, yet it was dissolved on Day 7 when the four starting tribes were reshuffled into two.
Q 22After the mutiny in Survivor: Cook Islands, the Aitu Four repeatedly banished which mutineer to Exile Island as payback?
Candice Woodcock
Candice Woodcock jumped first and paid for it: the four players she left behind won the very next challenge and sent her straight to Exile Island.
Q 23Ozzy Lusth won all but one individual immunity challenge in Survivor: Cook Islands; which copier salesman won the other?
Adam Gentry
Parvati Shallow was a 23-year-old boxer and cocktail waitress here; she went on to become one of the most celebrated players the show has had.
Q 14Ozzy Lusth and Jonathan Penner returned two years after Survivor: Cook Islands in which Fans vs. Favorites season?
Micronesia
Micronesia took three Cook Islands castaways as Favorites, more than any other season supplied, and one of the three went on to win it.
Q 15One of the Aitu Four stayed away from Survivor for 14 years before returning in which season, where he placed 14th?
Winners at War
Winners at War brought back twenty former champions for the show's fortieth season; he was voted out and could not win his way back from the Edge of Extinction.
Q 16Which carmaker, a Survivor sponsor since the first season, pulled its advertising before Survivor: Cook Islands aired?
General Motors
General Motors had supplied roughly a fifth of the show's ad revenue that year and had handed cars to earlier champions; it said the choice predated news of the format.
Q 17Members of which city's council publicly asked CBS not to broadcast Survivor: Cook Islands before its premiere?
New York
New York councilman John Liu launched the campaign and was joined by fellow council members at a press conference; CBS stood by its producers and aired the season as planned.
Q 18Which comedy series opened its twelfth season with a parody of Survivor: Cook Islands two days after the premiere?
Mad TV
Mad TV's spoof rigged the contests, letting one tribe paddle a canoe through a swimming race while its rivals had to swim.
Q 19Exile Island, used throughout Survivor: Cook Islands, first became a season-long twist in a series set in which country?
Panama
Panama's season carried the subtitle Exile Island; Cook Islands kept the twist, banishing a castaway after most challenges to a bare sand cay in the lagoon.
Q 20The two tribes of Survivor: Cook Islands merged at nine players under what blended name?
Aitutonga
Aitutonga fused Aitutaki and Rarotonga, and the order proved apt: the four players Aitutaki brought to the merge outlasted all five from Rarotonga.
Adam Gentry won a memory contest built on the season's own events, then traded his jury vote for a promise that Jonathan Penner would be voted out before him.
Q 24Which Survivor: Cook Islands castaway, the first juror, later introduced the season's winner to his future wife?
Brad Virata
Brad Virata, a menswear merchandising director, played matchmaker after the show, and the couple's 2009 winery wedding was televised.
Q 25Which Survivor: Cook Islands castaway dreamed up Plan Voodoo, an early scheme for splitting a tribe's votes?
Cao Boi Bui
Cao Boi Bui said the plan came to him in a dream; his tribe voted him out that same night, yet vote-splitting later became standard Survivor strategy.
Q 26Which jazz bassist, the oldest castaway in Survivor: Cook Islands, was the first person voted out of the season?
Sekou Bunch
Sekou Bunch had played with Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones and Ray Charles, but he lasted only three days and later performed his own Survivor song at the reunion.
Q 27J.P. Calderon, voted out fourth in Survivor: Cook Islands, was a nationally ranked professional in which sport?
Volleyball
Volleyball took Calderon from a Long Beach State scholarship to the pro beach tour, and he later modeled for Janice Dickinson's agency.
Q 28Ozzy Lusth, the challenge star of Survivor: Cook Islands, was born in the city of Guanajuato in which country?
Mexico
Mexico was home only briefly: his parents divorced when he was a toddler, and he moved with his mother to North Carolina to be near relatives.
Q 29Survivor: Cook Islands runner-up Ozzy Lusth later competed on the second season of which other competition series?
American Ninja Warrior
American Ninja Warrior suited a man who could dive to 30 feet and hold his breath for three minutes, skills that helped him win five immunity challenges.
Q 30In the second episode of Survivor: Cook Islands, Ozzy Lusth talked Aitutaki into doing what to get rid of Billy Garcia?
Throwing a challenge
Throwing a challenge on purpose worked: Aitutaki lost, voted Garcia out, and Lusth later cited the move to the jury as proof of his strategy.