The House of the Scorpion
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50 free The House of the Scorpion trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion begins in a laboratory and never lets its hero forget it. Matt is a clone of El Patrón, the ancient drug lord who rules a strip of poppy fields between the United States and its southern neighbour, and most of the people around him regard him as livestock. The novel follows him from a locked cottage to the Big House and on to a desperate run for the border, asking all the way what makes someone a person. This quiz walks through the whole story: Matt's hidden childhood, the family and servants of the Big House, the eejits who work the fields, the friends and enemies he makes among the Keepers' orphans, and the ending that turns everything over. A handful of questions step outside the plot to cover the author, the ideas behind the book, its prizes and its sequel. It is written for students who have just finished the novel, for classes and book clubs checking comprehension, and for readers coming back to it years later. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something about Opium.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In The House of the Scorpion, the embryo that becomes Matt is implanted in which animal to grow?
A cow
A cow carries Matt to birth in a laboratory: he is the only one of 36 embryos, made from century-old cells, to survive.
Q 02In The House of the Scorpion, what sets Matt apart from every other clone living in Opium?
His mind was never destroyed
His mind was never destroyed because El Patrón ignores the law that every clone's brain be blunted at birth, which is why Matt can read, play music and plan an escape.
Q 03In The House of the Scorpion, where on Matt's body is the tattoo that marks him as estate property?
The sole of his foot
The sole of his foot carries the words, which Emilia spots while maids clean the glass cuts he got climbing out of a broken window.
Q 04In The House of the Scorpion, what is the country once called Mexico known as in Matt's time?
Aztlán
Aztlán borrows its name from the mythical homeland of the Aztec peoples, and Matt flees there over the mountains when Opium turns on him.
Q 05In The House of the Scorpion, which cook raises Matt in a small house beside the poppy fields?
Celia
Celia looks after him there for his first six years. She comes from the same village as El Patrón, which is why he spared her and gave her a kitchen job.
Q 06In The House of the Scorpion, which bodyguard and former terrorist becomes a father figure to Matt?
Tam Lin
Tam Lin teaches Matt to camp, cook and think for himself, then fakes the boy's execution and sets him on the path out of Opium.
Q 07In The House of the Scorpion, what is implanted in a person's head to make them an obedient eejit?
A computer chip
A computer chip leaves an eejit able to follow only simple orders, so a field worker nobody tells to stop will carry on until he drops dead.
Q 08Which poison does Matt's caretaker feed him in The House of the Scorpion to ruin his donor heart?
Arsenic
Arsenic in doses too small to hurt a healthy boy would be deadly to a frail old man, and the news throws El Patrón into the rage that kills him.
Q 09In The House of the Scorpion, which drink, saved by El Patrón for his own funeral, kills his heirs?
Wine
Wine laced with poison is poured at the wake, because El Patrón never meant to die and wanted his empire and everyone in it to go with him.
Q 10In The House of the Scorpion, what does the drug lord's Spanish title, El Patrón, mean in English?
The Boss
The Boss is the translation, and it suits a man who treats every field, servant and relative in Opium as his personal property.
Q 11In The House of the Scorpion, the drug lords were granted Opium after promising America to stop what?
Illegal immigration
Illegal immigration was the problem the deal claimed to solve, and El Patrón also promised to keep his drugs out of the United States.
Q 12In The House of the Scorpion, what does young Matt use to smash the window of his locked house?
A cooking pot
A cooking pot made of iron breaks the glass, and Matt cuts himself so badly climbing out that the children have to carry him to the Big House.
Q 13In The House of the Scorpion, a cruel housemaid keeps young Matt in a pen filled with what material?
Sawdust
Q 21In The House of the Scorpion, the bomb Matt's bodyguard meant for a prime minister blew up what instead?
A school bus
A school bus took the blast and twenty children died, the guilt that later makes him stay in Opium to atone rather than flee with Matt.
Q 22In The House of the Scorpion, what are the implanted mounts that will not even drink unless ordered called?
Safe Horses
Safe Horses are programmed to do exactly what a rider says, the first hint Matt gets of how the field workers around him are controlled.
Q 23In The House of the Scorpion, what secret mountain refuge does Matt's bodyguard show him on a picnic?
An oasis
Sawdust covers the floor as if he were livestock, and Matt fills the months burying small treasures in it and watching the bugs.
Q 14In The House of the Scorpion, which housekeeper who jailed Matt is later found working as an eejit?
Rosa
Rosa is made a mindless stable hand as punishment, and Matt, who once hated her, is horrified when she looks straight through him.
Q 15In The House of the Scorpion, what is the name of María's small, much-pampered dog?
Furball
Furball goes everywhere with María, and Matt resents the dog as a reminder that the household ranks him as an animal too.
Q 16In The House of the Scorpion, who secretly kills María's dog and lets Matt take the blame?
Felicia
Felicia admits it in a talk Matt and María overhear on El Patrón's surveillance screens: she killed the pet to punish Matt for being unkind to her son.
Q 17In The House of the Scorpion, which red-haired party guest turns out to be Tom's real father?
Mr. MacGregor
Mr. MacGregor runs a drug Farm near San Diego, and the affair explains why Tom looks so much like the mindless clone the man keeps for spare parts.
Q 18In The House of the Scorpion, which instrument does Matt teach himself in secret before taking lessons?
Piano
Piano draws Matt in after he hides in a music-room closet to hear a relative of El Patrón play, and the closet turns out to open onto secret passages.
Q 19In The House of the Scorpion, what disability makes Matt's kindly music teacher desperate for work?
He is deaf
He is deaf, which is why Mr. Ortega agrees to teach a clone. Matt later honours him by borrowing his surname as a false name across the border.
Q 20In The House of the Scorpion, Matt's bodyguard shares a ballad hero's name and comes from which country?
Scotland
Scotland is his homeland, and the old ballad behind his name comes from its border country: the hero is rescued from the Queen of the Fairies by his true love.
An oasis with a pool and a grapevine becomes Matt's hideout, and a trunk of supplies and books left there for him later makes his escape possible.
Q 24In The House of the Scorpion, who wrote the angry history of the drug empire that Matt reads in hiding?
Esperanza
Esperanza turns out to be María's long-absent mother, a campaigner against the drug lords whom her younger daughter believed was dead.
Q 25In The House of the Scorpion, which holy man's life does María read before deciding to forgive Matt?
Saint Francis
Saint Francis did not blame animals for following their nature, so María forgives Matt on the same terms, for a death he did not even cause.
Q 26In The House of the Scorpion, which grandson of El Patrón refuses transplants and accepts death from cancer?
El Viejo
El Viejo is devoutly religious and chooses to die of cancer rather than use a clone, which is why Matt's caretaker calls him the family's last decent member.
Q 27In The House of the Scorpion, what lasting illness does Matt develop after months locked in a pen?
Asthma
Asthma stays with Matt for good, and an attack beside a polluted river in the final chapters nearly stops him just short of rescue.
Q 28In The House of the Scorpion, what do Matt and María try to steal to flee the wedding-day chaos?
A hovercraft
A hovercraft belonging to her father is the target, with Matt dressed as her eejit servant, but the newlyweds catch them on the landing field.
Q 29In The House of the Scorpion, which boy from the Big House grows up to marry Emilia Mendoza?
Steven
Steven marries her in a match El Patrón arranged years earlier, and the old man's collapse during the ceremony sends the bodyguards after Matt.
Q 30In The House of the Scorpion, which folklore monster does Matt describe to María, frightening her badly?
Chupacabra
Chupacabra means goat sucker. Matt learned such tales from his caretaker, and his stories scare María so much that she stays in his locked room all night.