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Quiz: Presentations And Everyday Traits

Test your understanding of the three ADHD presentations and the everyday traits families actually see with these review questions.

1. According to the DSM-5, what are the three presentations of ADHD?

  1. Mild, moderate, and severe
  2. Childhood, adolescent, and adult
  3. Predominantly inattentive, predominantly hyperactive-impulsive, and combined
  4. Type A, Type B, and Type C
Show Answer

The correct answer is C. The DSM-5 sorts ADHD into predominantly inattentive, predominantly hyperactive-impulsive, and combined presentations, based on which symptom category's threshold is met. Option A describes severity, not presentation. Option B describes ages, not diagnostic categories. Option D is a made-up labeling scheme not used in the DSM-5.

Concept Tested: Combined Presentation

See: Chapter 3

2. What is time blindness?

  1. A weakened felt sense of how much time has passed or how far away a deadline is
  2. An inability to read a clock
  3. A vision problem common in ADHD
  4. Difficulty remembering past events
Show Answer

The correct answer is A. Time blindness is a weakened felt sense of duration and deadlines, with the ADHD time horizon collapsed to "now" and "not now," illustrated by Dana believing getting ready always takes eight minutes. Option B confuses it with a literal reading skill. Option C misidentifies it as a vision issue. Option D describes long-term memory, a separate and generally intact system.

Concept Tested: Time Blindness

See: Chapter 3

3. What is masking, as this chapter defines it?

  1. Wearing a literal face covering to reduce sensory input
  2. A medication side effect
  3. The formal diagnostic term for combined presentation
  4. The continuous, effortful concealment of ADHD symptoms to appear fine
Show Answer

The correct answer is D. Masking is the continuous, effortful concealment of symptoms — suppressing fidgeting, rehearsing sentences, arriving early to hide time blindness — illustrated by Grace, whose "organized" reputation was hand-built compensation. Option A is a literal misreading of the word. Option B misplaces it as a drug effect. Option C confuses it with an unrelated diagnostic category.

Concept Tested: Masking

See: Chapter 3

4. What is hyperfocus?

  1. Constant, low-grade distractibility
  2. A state of intense, tunnel-vision absorption in which time and other signals are muted
  3. The medical term for hyperactivity in adults
  4. A symptom found only in the hyperactive-impulsive presentation
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Hyperfocus is described as intense, tunnel-vision absorption where hours vanish and hunger, bladder, and time signals are all muted — the same regulation coin's other face as distractibility. Option A describes the opposite pattern. Option C misnames an unrelated adult symptom. Option D is incorrect; hyperfocus appears across presentations, not just the hyperactive-impulsive one.

Concept Tested: Hyperfocus

See: Chapter 3

5. Why can a child who can't sit through five minutes of homework manage to play chess or a video game for an hour, according to this chapter?

  1. The child is choosing to misbehave only during homework
  2. Chess and video games require no attention at all
  3. Situational variability: interest, novelty, immediate feedback, and challenge raise motivation and lower load, so symptoms genuinely shrink in situations that supply them
  4. The child has fully outgrown ADHD during enjoyable activities
Show Answer

The correct answer is C. Situational variability explains that symptoms genuinely change strength with the situation, because interest, novelty, and immediate feedback raise the reward system's pull and lower cognitive load. Option A frames a mechanism as a choice. Option B is false; games demand real attention, just of a kind the brain readily supplies. Option D misreads a temporary situational effect as a permanent outcome.

Concept Tested: Situational Variability

See: Chapter 3

6. According to the chapter, why does masking contribute to ADHD being diagnosed late, especially in women?

  1. Masking produces decent grades and performance, so nobody refers the person for evaluation, even though it is expensive to maintain
  2. Masking makes symptoms disappear permanently
  3. Masking is only possible for people without real ADHD
  4. Masking is a treatment that cures the underlying condition
Show Answer

The correct answer is A. The chapter explains masking works well enough to produce decent grades and reviews, so nobody refers the person for evaluation, even though maintaining the performance is expensive and eventually costly, as with Grace. Option B is false; masking conceals symptoms, it doesn't remove them. Option C contradicts the chapter's claim that masking is common precisely among people who do have ADHD. Option D confuses concealment with treatment.

Concept Tested: Masking

See: Chapter 3

  1. Procrastination in ADHD only happens with unimportant tasks
  2. There is no meaningful difference; both describe the same thing
  3. ADHD procrastination always resolves itself without a deadline
  4. Procrastination in ADHD involves genuine suffering over the undone task and a failure of task initiation, not indifference to it
Show Answer

The correct answer is D. The chapter describes ADHD procrastination as task initiation failure wearing a moral costume — the person suffers over the undone task, often doing decoy productivity, rather than feeling indifferent to it. Option A is unsupported; the tasks are often important. Option B collapses a distinction the chapter deliberately draws. Option C contradicts the chapter's point that urgency is usually what finally triggers action.

Concept Tested: Procrastination

See: Chapter 3

8. Why does the chapter warn against treating someone's best-ever performance as their new normal?

  1. Because people with ADHD deliberately perform worse on purpose after a good day
  2. Because performance inconsistency means a great day reflects unusually aligned conditions, not a new sustainable baseline
  3. Because good days are proof the person doesn't have ADHD
  4. Because best-ever performances are always faked
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Performance inconsistency means a great performance reflects conditions lining up well that day, not a new floor the person can now be held to; treating it as the new minimum turns encouragement into an accusation. Option A wrongly implies intentional sabotage. Option C contradicts situational variability, which predicts inconsistency as a symptom, not its absence. Option D is an unsupported and uncharitable claim the chapter never makes.

Concept Tested: Performance Inconsistency

See: Chapter 3

9. A father plans a completely unstructured, quiet Saturday for his wife with ADHD as a gift of rest, but by 10 am she has reorganized a closet and started laundry, visibly agitated by the stillness. Which trait from this chapter best explains her reaction?

  1. Masking
  2. Time blindness
  3. Restlessness in adults, driven by discomfort with unstructured stillness
  4. Decision paralysis
Show Answer

The correct answer is C. This is the chapter's Priya example: restlessness in adults often looks like structural motion, and unstructured stillness produces under-arousal that the system escapes through activity. Masking (A) concerns concealing symptoms, not seeking motion. Time blindness (B) concerns duration perception, not restlessness. Decision paralysis (D) concerns freezing over choices, not filling stillness with action.

Concept Tested: Restlessness In Adults

See: Chapter 3

10. Nora's son was diagnosed with combined presentation at age eight. At sixteen, he sits calmly through dinner, so Nora assumes he's "growing out of it," even as his grades quietly collapse from missed assignments. What does this chapter say is really happening?

  1. His presentation has likely shifted toward inattentive as the visible motor moved inward, while the invisible half now drives the struggles
  2. He no longer has ADHD, since the visible hyperactivity is gone
  3. His calm at dinner proves the earlier diagnosis was incorrect
  4. Grades dropping is unrelated to ADHD and points to a different cause entirely
Show Answer

The correct answer is A. The chapter explains presentations are snapshots that shift with age — a hyperactive-impulsive child often becomes inattentive-looking as the visible motor goes inside, exactly as with Nora's son, whose collapsing grades signal the invisible half now running the show. Option B and C both mistake fading visible symptoms for the condition disappearing or never existing. Option D ignores the direct link the chapter draws between inattentive symptoms and missed assignments.

Concept Tested: Inattentive Presentation

See: Chapter 3