SAAS Lore
Viva La Vocab
Chess Stuff
Geography Galore
Things That Aren't Cool
100

Three or so years ago, students were forbidden from frequenting this location adjacent to SAAS for engaging in bad, unbecoming behavior.

The Seattle University bookstore.

100

What word may be defined as a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather? 

petrichor

100

In chess notation, what does the symbol "O-O" represent?

King-side castling!

100

What remote, uninhabited island save an autonomous South African weather station, is an albatross haven?

Gough Island!

100

What thing that basically renders us all rotisserie chickens, is hopelessly overrated?

The stupid sun.

200

What core text did freshmen at SAAS read for a long time, but no more?

The Odyssey, by Homer
200

Define "anemoia."


nostalgia for a place or time one has never known or experienced

200

How many squares are there on a chess board?

64, obvi.
200

What are the three small countries located at the top of South America, left to right? Name them.

Guyana. Suriname. French Guiana.

200

Dying because you have an irrational fear of beans, like Pythagoras, is the worst. What is this fear called?

leguminophobia

300

What brief, fleeting, treasured tradition, was introduced during remote, asynchronous learning during the Pandemic, that some students have petitioned to have reinstated?  

We Wednesday! 

300

What word refers to the third from the end, or the one before the next-to-the-last?

antepenultimate

300

What does the term "zugzwang" refer to?

It refers to a situation when it's a player's turn, but any move they make will worsen their position. There are no skipping turns in chess, folks! 

300

What two islands, own governed by Russia, the other governed by the US, lie only 2.4 miles apart from one another?

The Diomede Islands.

300

This vegetable contains what is called "lachrymatory factor" and assaults your mucous membranes.

Onions, nature's worst vegetable.

400

A building used to exist between the Vanderbilt and where the Middle School Building now sits. What unlikely service did it provide, considering that it was located on a high school campus?

A re-integration house.

400

What does "balderdash" mean?


nonsense

400

Eighteenth-century French chess master and composer François-André Danican Philidor said which pieces are the "soul of chess?"

Pawns! Forget the rest.

400

What country is entirely encircled by South Africa?

Lesotho.

400
What's the opposite of a positive?

A negative. THE DAILY NEGATIVE! Add a minus symbol to your score.

500

Many moons ago, some students stole a delivery to the Comet. What lead allowed law enforcement to find the culprits and bring them to justice?

The students drove away in a car that draped a Seattle Academy-branded t-shirt over their rear license plate.

500

Define "disabuse."

to correct, or to free someone from, a misconception. 

500

What is a "knight's tour?"

A knight's tour is a sequence of moves of a knight on a chessboard such that the knight visits every square exactly once.

500

What country features an open book, a gardening hoe, and a bayonetted AK-47?

Mozambique

500

These abrasive, invasive grains have the ability to aggressively exfoliate your dermis, leaving you raw to the sun's harsh UV rays and in pain should you leap into the brackish waters of Elliott Bay.

Sand, the most annoying naturally occurring substance.