People have two channels in their head.

Channel 1's feed is mybullshitdelusional narrative about myself

Channel 2's feed is outside stimulus

These two channels very rarely operate independently of each other. 

In fact very often it is in stereo. 

If someone you ask a question the conversational respondent may answer in one of the following ways.....

They answer in a way which shows they did not understand the question;

Q: What do you think of the sustainability strategy of the government?

A: I think the environment rules, I think the government should sustain it. 

They might answer in a way which is them answering a question they want to answer

Q: What do you think of the sustainability strategy of the government?

A: I think the government should do more about those people who are littering, It happens a lot on my street.

There are lot of example of shitty question answering. This is largely because channel 1 interferes a lot with the signal of channel 2. channel 1 is a lot more compelling because it is about us. 

Go an sit on a cushion, close your eyes and breath and try and calm channel 1 down a little bit. It will make you less of a crappy question answerer. 

Luv' you dear reader.