Yesterday I took that ADD test, and it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I went in thinking that they’d give me the usual questionnaire-style deal where they describe a feeling (“I often feel that my gassiness is keeping me from realizing my learning potential”) and I tell them how closely that statement fits me (“Extremely vaguely, Very vaguely, Vaguely, Somewhat vaguely, Not vaguely at all”). Instead I was given what’s apparently called the Continuous Performance Test II (CPT-II).
They sat me down in front of a computer and showed me a black screen. White letters started flashing in the center of the screen, one at a time, at varying intervals. Sometimes letters would come rapid-fire, one after the other, maybe half a second apart. Other times there would be as long as a 7-8 second pause between letters. My job was to click the mouse every time I saw any letter other than X. Cursor location didn’t matter, only the speed and accuracy of my click timing mattered. The test lasted for something like ten minutes.
I didn’t know before or during the test what they’d be looking for, but good lord did I ever fail by any metric. My response times, honed by years of martial arts, fast driving, and video games, were probably pretty decent. However, that seemed to vary a great deal. Sometimes I would get into a rhythm and start anticipating, clicking before letters appeared or even when no letter was being shown at all. Other times I could tell my attention was lapsing, and I’d be as much as a full second late on clicking for a letter. There were instances where I found myself unconsciously looking away from the screen at something else in the room in the breaks between letters. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t click nearly every single bloody X in the test.
So yes, that was unexpected and interesting. I guess in a day or two I’ll find out what they gleaned from the test, and if I’m crazy (in yet another flavor) or not. Until then, my attention issues have caused me to lose interest in writing this post, so THE END