Quiz - Present Simple or Present Progressive?

Take this quiz and see how good you're at using this structures!
Present Simple / Progressive Quiz

Hello Mr.Rastegar
I have a question about these two questions.
"Q14 - Don't pay attention- he ____ stupid.
is just
is just being
Either could be used here.
Q16 - He _____ silly questions.
always asks
is always asking
Either could be used here."

I don't know why we can use present simple and present continuous.
Thanks.

Mohammad.Kh wrote:Hello Mr.Rastegar
I have a question about these two questions.
"Q14 - Don't pay attention- he ____ stupid.
is just
is just being
Either could be used here.
Q16 - He _____ silly questions.
always asks
is always asking
Either could be used here."

I don't know why we can use present simple and present continuous.
Thanks.

Hi Mohammad,
I'm glad to see that you're so observant!
As you said yourself, in both questions both options are correct.
The first one's easy: in the sentence "Don't pay attention - He is just stupid." you're saying that generally he is a stupid person, but in the sentence "Don't pay attention - he is just being stupid."you mean that he is behaving like a stupid person only on that particular situation.

The second one is a little trickier: In the sentence "He always asks silly questions." you're saying that it a habit for him to ask silly questions. It's a very usual sentence; an adverb of frequency (always) in a present simple sentence. But, in the sentence "He is always asking silly questions.", not only you're saying he has this habit of asking silly questions, but that you feel really annoyed by this habit of his. This sentence is usually said is a certain intonation to emphasizes this feeling of annoyance.