Even if you misunderstand the intent of the author, you can give a well-reasoned interpretation.
From what I remember of the standardized tests, they were either more interested in marking the structure of the content than the content itself, or looking for keywords and marking off a checklist.
To the snarky cynic in me, this might be good training for resume-writing, but not really how you want to teach your high school students to be good at creative interpretation.
I dropped out of school because of this. Because I failed writing an essay on world war 1 poetry.
It’s not right to dissect art and fail a student for “wrong” answers.