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So, for my exam, in addition to it ending up deferred, I had Special Conditions.
Those conditions were: a computer to use, so I didn't have to write by hand, and a separate, low-distraction room. Partly, I think, because of deferral, but possibly as a general thing, what I actually had was an Arts Seminar Room containing me and the invigilator - Lee, the retired, totally awesome former philosophy/history departmental secretary who in her day saved the sanity of many of us, including just about everyone who ever had to study under Reverend Borthwick. (A man who is not inherently evil, but does a good impression of it. I think fairly highly of him in some ways, but... yeah, thank God for Lee.)
Another reason Lee is awesome, that also shows that she has her own philosophy background, however informal: upon learning that I have recently changed my full name, she said: "Oh, so it's a whole new identity!" Instantly and intuitively grasping the philosophical significance of it; that a name is important, and that someone changing their full name is almost certainly doing that as a part of changing who they are.
What all this stuff with the special conditions meant was that, in addition to being medicated for ADHD for the first time in my exam-taking experience, the room wasn't full of distractions, and when, halfway through, I couldn't stand sitting still any more, I was able to get up and walk around the room for a couple of minutes before I settled back to work.
Which meant that the questions which I'd looked at before in horrified incomprehension, I found I could still concentrate on, still read, could understand... and could and did answer. It was just such an amazing feeling - instead of spending my exam feeling stupid and frustrated and miserable as I stared at the words and struggled to get them to form sentences in my head, even, I could read and think and work and completed the exam using the full time alotted to answer questions comprehensively instead of writing abbreviated, semi-coherent crap and "finishing" early, but badly.
This is why I really, really wanted an ADHD diagnosis - I wanted it to be ADHD that was my problem, I wanted it to be something treatable, something that could be managed. ADHD means the problem isn't me, in the sense of it being a character flaw, a lack of willpower or dedication that has made me fail so many exams. ADHD means I'm just a little different, neurologically - arguably, biologically adapted to "hunter" more than "gatherer", attuned to my surroundings and unable to ignore them, unable to be passive. Born to multitask.
Just that little bit different. Not worse (or better), just different.
How did I do? Not entirely sure, but I think I actually did reasonably, where at first I looked at it and thought I was guaranteed to fail.
I don't at all regret how little I actually studied, because the stuff I wasn't sure about, I don't think it would have occurred to me to study. *cough* The things that were on my revision list, which I didn't feel motivated to study because I still felt like I already understood it thoroughly, I had no problem with the related content on the exam. Actually, I enjoyed those parts - I really like doing phonological analysis of data that's already been transcribed. It's fun to take a language apart to see how it works, the intuitive rules that underpin it in a way so elementary that native speakers aren't even aware of them.
You want an example? Sure. If you're reading this, odds are you speak English. (If you are Deaf, I apologise, but I don't know how or if this works in signed languages.)
In English there exists a sound, depicted orthographically (in writing) as "n". In theory, this represents the sound that is technically called an "alveolar nasal" - it's a nasal sound, meaning airflow/sound is transmitted through your nose (which is why saying it is so hard when you have a cold). The "alveolar" part means that your tongue is making contact with the alveolar ridge, that ridge you can feel behind your teeth if you trace the shape of the roof of your mouth.
Except sometimes, that's not the sound you make at all. If you say a word like "anthem", you actually make a dental nasal, when your tongue touches at your teeth. This is called assimilation; we're doing it because it's easier for our tongue to make the transition to the "th" sound, which is what's called a dental fricative. (A lot of stuff about articulatory phonetics involves "it's easier".)
Now, to an English speaker, this distinction isn't contrastive - there are no words that are distinct because of the difference between a dental and alveolar nasal, it isn't a meaningful difference. Which, in a demonstration of the odd ways our brains process language sounds, leads to English-speakers thinking they sound the same, even though they don't.
In some languages, that difference is contrastive and meaningful, and to native speakers of those languages, the difference is as obvious as the difference between "r" and "l" is to native English speakers - who, in turn, have a historical tendency to mock Japanese speakers for having trouble with the difference between those two sounds, which are again not contrastive in Japanese. (But most English-speakers can't pronounce "fu" correctly. OH LANGUAGE.)
Anyway. I am kind of hyper, in positive ways based on having finally experienced the process of taking an exam without having to swim upstream against my own neurology, and IT WAS AWESOME SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS IT WAS PRACTICALLY FUN.
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