I was considering to bring up AU or NZ here too. I deserve at least half like, for the intentions.
If I could give you a half-like, I would. But, well…
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It seems someone else had a somewhat similar experience:
Google “phonemic awareness assessment” and DIY.
An other example from my child’s listening test is: “Those are high hills,” or
'Those are high heels."
“Are these the chicks you want me to keep,” or
“Are these the checks you want me to keep.”
The goal is to circle the word the child thought it heard.
My child says that when the teacher tries to stress the word it actually becomes difficult to tell the difference.
My child understands most of the test.
The teachers pronunciation in English is okay except for these few instances.
The trouble is it doesn’t look good for a mixed child who grew up speaking English to make these sort of mistakes. And it’s frustrating not to get the right answer.
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maybe the teacher should teach eubonics instead
I agree that the vowel differences can get confusing, and I can see how it could be discouraging for a child in school.
In one of my school’s plays, a character in the play used the expression “uh,” to indicate hesitation while thinking what to say. Someone at school read the “uh” as “ah.” Also, in the digitized tapes of an old U. S. government Chinese course, one of the native speakers in a language lesson dialogue indicates hesitation by saying an expression that sounds more like “ah” than like “uh.”*
And saying “uh” the way a native English speaker would (or at least the way a lot of North American native English speakers would) can be misunderstood, too. I was in an elevator in Banqiao, and someone asked me what floor I was going to, and I think I was going to say “sān lóu” (third floor), but in any case I didn’t intend to go to the second floor. But because I don’t really know Chinese, I said “uh,” out of a lack of confidence, and the man pressed “2,” thinking I had said “èr.”
*Additionally, some of the Chinese speakers in that government course pronounce the surname “Lín” in a way that comes closer to rhyming with “pin” than with “green.”
Please check the different pronunciations available and realize how stupid English is
In this case I find the American pronunciation the most confusing. UK is much more clearly different from duck, and it makes more sense to me.
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Doesn’t look good for who? If they teacher isn’t pronouncing it right, did your child really make the mistake?
I mean how old is your kid? I doubt they are at a grade where what scores they get really matter right? If they understand it, I wouldn’t stress so much. They are going to be better off than the kids who circled the “correct” answer down the road. I’m pretty sure you don’t want your kids to tell people who are about to touch a duck “don’t touch the dock”
Four UK accents (or five with “Irish”) and only two US? 
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Obviously the people who created this come from the UK. you cannot be aware of all accents and dialects.
Some amateur linguists should contact them asking to join their project and help them with expansion.
This discussion has opened some repressed memories.
Have you ever heard the New Jersey/ New York accent?
I had a friend who talked so strangely that we thought he had a speech defect. He kept telling us about him getting “Earl” for his car. He also did not have a toilet but a “turlette” instead.
Seriously this is a real accent or dialect.
and it’s a wonder how it can still be going on because no one talks that way in the local media except for maybe one character called Archie Bunker. But that was years ago.
Three.
My daughter in middle school complained about the same thing. She’s culturally very American and a native speaker. She does well on her English tests but does not always ace them because of issues like this one.
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Some people in New Orleans used to talk like that: terlet (toilet), ersta (oyster), etc. I’ve heard it called the Ninth Ward accent, but I doubt that it was limited to the Ninth Ward. The writer John Kennedy Toole called New Orleans “that Hoboken near the Gulf of Mexico.” The journalist A. J. Liebling also noticed the accent.
It had some peculiarities you might not find in New Jersey, though: the noun sink was pronounced zink (not sure about the verb), Saturday was pronounced Zattdy, mayonnaise was pronounced my nez, battery was battry, and the suburb of Metairie was pronounced Mettry. Other speech peculiarities: they wouldn’t say, “I went to Schwegmann’s [a local supermarket chain that may not be in business anymore] and bought groceries”; they would say, “I passed by Schwegmann’s and made my groceries.”
Jamaica’s not a US state, man. 
But isn’t it considered USA?
Only if you put “manifest destiny” on steroids.
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Jamaica is Jamaica, mon!
My apologies folks. I knew it was a country but I thought I read or heard something like that they’re somehow and somewhat USA.
Anyway, my point is… what’s the OP’s point? that his kid fails to identify the pronunciation or that he fails to apply logic? what I wanted to say linking that dictionary is that there are very different ways to pronounce those words, and in some cases the difference between the two words are more clear than in others. I don’t find the USA “accent” very clear or useful in this case, but yeah, if I were the OP I’d also be concern about my kid not being sure what d*ck to touch.