Macbeth,
You might be right about the question. I have always tried to qualify such things. If I, as a kid, was asked that question and "KNEW" a number, I would have said "Well, they say it is xxx horses, but that was yesterday, and who can really tell?". When I said she "failed", I was kind of kidding about what another person said. Anyway, it should be part of a diagnosis.
It could also be like the watchman in the old jok where he tried to figure out what the worker was stealing when he constantly went out with wheelbarrows. Every night, it was clear that he wasn't stealing anything. He was stealing wheelbarrows. Maybe they wanted to see her reaction, and didn't really care about the answer, etc....
As for your different experiences, she was checked later. Who knows, maybe they got their act together.
But HEY, when they checked ME out, they didn't even have any such diagnosis. It was a nice office, and he seemed like a nice guy, and he gave me a lot of tests, but I STILL think he was a quack. Maybe that is one reason I dislike the whole idea of psychologists/psychiatrists.
Steve