Late Diagnosis - RAADS-R - Weird qestions

Absolutely... I don't think that an autistic person's perception of how others perceive them is a particularly good way to assess autistic traits  Accurately answering any question like that would require you to have an in-depth understanding of what goes on in a neurotypical person's head when they're interacting with you. 

indeed. a lot of the questions seem to asking you to judge yourself against the expectations of others ... I just do not get the feedback from others to enable me to understand how they see me. I have had comments from NTs that I seem completely unaware of how others respond to me.

If there was an option for "I have no idea" I would pick that for most of the questions... I have very little self-awareness about most of the things it asks about.

The RAADS-R is probably the most reliable test available for differentiating autistic from allistic people. Of course it is far from perfect. All the autism tests have problems with ambiguous or context-dependant questions and the use of outdated stereotypical or gender biased ideas.

The mask or camouflage is how most autistic people learn to blend into their surroundings, society or peers, we often hide behind our safe persona and try to look like the normies. It’s acting, we unfortunately become too good at it.

Roy said:

you don’t have to tick every box

Ah. I missed that.  oh well.  Thanks for answering.
I find it really had in these tests for the things they are asking about, is my situation my 'natural state', or what I have learned to do ... is it me or my mask?

Hi, you don’t have to tick every box, we are all uniquely different. I try to explain autism identity as one of those watercolour palettes, the little tin of square blocks we had as children, I’m  maybe five colours, you could be three of my colours and two of your own, or you could be six of your own.  Two different autistic people can  just have different needs. The spectrum has no starting or finishing line. The answers to the tests can change, it often depends on how the day has been, if the day has been very overwhelming, the answers can be different to another day, some questions are too black or white, some questions are very outdated. Some autistic people speak in a flat tone ( monotone) voice. Rhythm can change when tired, words can build up and get a backlog.