I sympathize with your frustrations. It sucks to do all the work right, understand everything, and still be told your answer is wrong. But I have to agree with Red Cat & Luffy here. The best way to answer questions like these to parrot whatever has already been said. You don't want to leave any room for doubt about your answer.
If given this passage:
Redd went to Nook's Cranny on Saturday. Timmy and Tommy ran to get Tom Nook, who came back to the shop with them very angry. Tom says, "Redd, leave this store immediately." Redd responds to Nook, "OK partner, give me a call when you change your mind." Redd leaves a business card on the counter and exits the store. Tommy picks it up and looks at it warily.
If I ask you: "In the above passage, who was Redd talking to?"
You don't want to be misinterpreted or treated like your answer is wrong.
If you respond: "The shop owner" or "The boss"- none of this information was given in the passage. You may already know it because you know who Tom Nook is, but the passage didn't give you that info, so that answer would almost certainly be counted WRONG. There also were no context clues to tell you that Nook was the boss or the shop owner- he could be, based on this passage, their dad for all we know.
Even "Nook" may not fly. "Nook" could refer to any of the Nooks in the store. Nook is put there to "clarify" who he is talking to, but also to throw you off if you don't read the passage closely. The verb is "responds", so who is he responding to specifically?
You should respond: "Tom Nook" to be CORRECT. It's frustrating, but true.
Now (answers revealed as i was writing this! wow!) we can go over the answer to #2. The question, if you remember was "What is the criminal/thief after?" (or something similar).
In the passage, Rocket states "He's going to the museum!" (or something like this.)
I assume a lot of people put "The museum" as the answer, but this is incorrect. He is going to the museum, but he is not after the whole museum. The answer is above, when Big Top says, "There's an empty frame labeled flowery painting". To which Rocket replies, "He's targeting the museum!" (or something similar). What could Redd be after in the museum is the real question.
If the testmaker wanted us to answer "museum", she probably would have said "WHERE is the criminal going?" But she wants us to use context clues to gather WHAT he is going to do while in the museum. You can infer by the context clues that he will steal a flowery painting to fill the empty frame. Thus the very literal answer of "he is after the flowery painting". As a grader, the answer artwork would also have likely been counted wrong, as it isn't specific to the scenario. Painting may have been counted correct because the word painting was used in the passage specifically.
Any time you take a reading test, this will be what a tester is looking for- I was a college entrance exams (SAT) tutor for a while & I had to train kids to see these little trip ups all of the time. But learning to address direct questions literally now will greatly improve your ability to do it in real life.
On another note, this fair event is just for fun! Yes, it can be frustrating to be wrong or to not have our answers picked. But we're learning new things every day! There will be a next time to try again & win it all.