UCLA Trivia
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47 free UCLA trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free UCLA trivia questions with answers. UCLA started as a teachers' college on Vermont Avenue, moved to a Westwood bean field in 1929 and became the most applied-to university in America. This quiz covers the campus and its history: the four original Romanesque buildings, the Janss brothers' cut-price land deal, the Nobel laureates, the room in Boelter Hall where the internet sent its first two letters, and the Bruin nickname that Berkeley students donated. Sports fans get plenty: John Wooden's ten titles and 88-game streak, Pauley Pavilion, the record 126 NCAA team championships, the Olympic medal count, and the USC rivalry with its railroad-locomotive Victory Bell. There are also questions on the alumni, from Jackie Robinson and Arthur Ashe to Ralph Bunche, Francis Ford Coppola and the Doors, and on campus traditions like Spring Sing and Joe and Josephine Bruin. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the university, the Bruins and their people, and each question carries its source. Difficulty runs from things every applicant knows to details only a Bruin alum would remember.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What are UCLA's official school colours?
True blue and gold
UCLA's colours are True blue and gold; cardinal and gold belong to crosstown rival USC. The Bruins' fight songs are 'Sons of Westwood' and 'Mighty Bruins'.
Q 02In what year did the Los Angeles State Normal School become the Southern Branch of the University of California?
1919
In 1919 the legislature turned the Los Angeles State Normal School into the Southern Branch of the University of California; it opened that September with 250 junior-college students and 1,250 teacher trainees.
Q 03Before Westwood, the campus was on Vermont Avenue in East Hollywood, on land now occupied by what?
Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles City College now occupies the Vermont Avenue site; the Normal School moved there in 1914 and had outgrown its 25 acres by the mid-1920s.
Q 04The Janss Steps are named for the brothers who sold the Westwood land for how much?
$1 million, under a third of its value
Edwin and Harold Janss sold the Westwood land for $1 million, under a third of its value, knowing a university would lift the worth of everything else they owned around it.
Q 05The Westwood campus opened to students in which year?
1929
The Westwood campus opened in 1929, with 5,500 students attending classes in four buildings arranged around the quad.
Q 06Which of these was one of the four original buildings around the Westwood quad?
Haines Hall
Haines Hall, originally the Chemistry Building, was one of the four; the others were Royce Hall, the College Library (now Powell) and the Physics-Biology Building, now Kaplan Hall.
Q 07The twin towers of Royce Hall reference which famous Italian church?
Sant'Ambrogio in Milan
Royce Hall's twin towers echo Sant'Ambrogio in Milan, a Lombard Romanesque basilica; the architects Allison & Allison used that style for the whole building.
Q 08Royce Hall is named after Josiah Royce, who was what?
A philosopher
A philosopher, Josiah Royce was a Harvard colleague of William James; born in Grass Valley, California, he took his bachelor's degree at the University of California in 1875.
Q 09The 'Bruins' nickname was offered to the Southern Branch by the student council of which school?
UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley's student council offered the name because Montana's Grizzlies already played in the Pacific Coast Conference; Berkeley's own teams stayed the Golden Bears.
Q 10What are the names of UCLA's costumed bear mascots?
Joe and Josephine Bruin
Joe and Josephine Bruin are the costumed mascots, members of the UCLA Spirit Squad who appear at Bruin games alongside the cheer and dance teams.
Q 11For fall 2022 UCLA received how many undergraduate applications, the most of any US university?
About 175,000
About 175,000 applications, including transfers, arrived for fall 2022, more than any other US university received that cycle.
Q 12The first ARPANET message was sent from UCLA in 1969 to which institution?
Stanford Research Institute
Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park received the message on 29 October 1969; the system crashed after two letters, so the first transmitted characters were 'lo'.
Q 13That first ARPANET connection was made from a computer in room 3420 of which UCLA building?
Boelter Hall
Q 21Which UCLA alumnus lit the Olympic cauldron at the 1984 Los Angeles Games?
Rafer Johnson
Rafer Johnson, the 1960 Olympic decathlon champion and a UCLA alumnus, climbed the steps of the Coliseum to light the cauldron at the 1984 opening ceremony.
Q 22Where do the Bruins play their home games on the gridiron?
The Rose Bowl in Pasadena
The Bruins have played home games at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena since 1982; their only national title came in 1954, when a no-repeat rule kept them out of a Rose Bowl showdown with Ohio State.
Q 23How many NCAA men's basketball titles did John Wooden win at UCLA?
10
Boelter Hall housed the SDS Sigma 7 host computer and the first Interface Message Processor, making the engineering building the network's first node.
Q 14Which UCLA professor developed packet-network theory and hosted the ARPANET's first node?
Leonard Kleinrock
Leonard Kleinrock's 1960s work on queueing theory underpinned packet switching; his UCLA students Steve Crocker and Jon Postel went on to write the network's early protocols.
Q 15Bunche Hall is named for the UCLA alumnus who won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for what?
Negotiating an Arab-Israeli armistice
Negotiating an Arab-Israeli armistice in 1949 as the UN's acting mediator earned Ralph Bunche the prize, making him the first African American Nobel laureate.
Q 16Which UCLA astronomer shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics?
Andrea Ghez
Andrea Ghez shared the 2020 physics prize with Reinhard Genzel for showing that a supermassive black hole sits at the centre of the Milky Way; she became the fourth woman to win it.
Q 17UCLA pharmacologist Louis Ignarro shared the 1998 Nobel for discovering the signalling role of which molecule?
Nitric oxide
Nitric oxide, a gas, was shown to signal blood-vessel relaxation; Ignarro shared the 1998 prize with Robert Furchgott and Ferid Murad.
Q 18UCLA's medical school is named after which entertainment mogul?
David Geffen
David Geffen gave $200 million in 2002, and the school took his name; the health system's flagship hospital is named after Ronald Reagan.
Q 19The Bruins joined which athletic conference after the Pac-12 broke up?
The Big Ten
The Big Ten admitted UCLA and USC for the 2024-25 season, putting two Los Angeles schools in a conference founded in 1896 as a Midwestern league.
Q 20UCLA's total of NCAA team championships trails only which school?
Stanford
Stanford leads the all-time NCAA team championship count, with UCLA second; the Bruins were the first school to reach 100 titles, when women's water polo won in 2007.
Wooden won 10 NCAA titles in a 12-year span from 1964 to 1975, including a record seven in a row; Jim Harrick added an 11th in 1995.
Q 24What was John Wooden's nickname?
The Wizard of Westwood
The Wizard of Westwood was the press's name for Wooden, who reportedly disliked it; his teams also set a men's college record with 88 consecutive wins.
Q 25John Wooden was the first person inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in which two categories?
Player and coach
Player and coach are the two categories in which Wooden was enshrined, in 1960 and 1973, the first person honoured in both; as a college guard he had been the first three-time consensus All-American.
Q 26Where did John Wooden play his own college basketball?
Purdue
Wooden played guard at Purdue, where the Boilermakers' 1932 team was retroactively named national champion by the Helms Foundation.
Q 27Which architect designed Pauley Pavilion (1965) and shaped much of the modern campus?
Welton Becket
Welton Becket's firm designed the 1965 arena; regent Edwin Pauley matched the alumni's contributions to get it built, and it was renovated in 2010-12.
Q 28Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played at UCLA under what name?
Lew Alcindor
Lew Alcindor was his name until 1971; as a sophomore All-American in 1967 he led UCLA to the first of three straight titles.
Q 29How many times has the UCLA men's basketball team finished a season undefeated, an NCAA record?
4
All 4 came under Wooden, in 1964, 1967, 1972 and 1973; the program also holds the record of 11 NCAA titles.
Q 30The Victory Bell contested with USC originally came from what?
A Southern Pacific locomotive
A Southern Pacific locomotive supplied the bell; UCLA's alumni association gave it to students in 1939, USC students stole it in 1941, and the rivalry game has decided its owner since 1942.