One of the killer features of Cortana is that she gets back to you if she wants additional information. You can almost have something like a dialogue. I don't think that test has taken that into account at all.
Google Now tells me the population of New York city, which is probably what most people want to know. If I wanted to know New York state I ask it again what is the population of New York state and it tells me. This is far better than every single query for what's the population of of New York asking to clarify if you mean city or state IMHO.
The second question doesn't even have to be "What is the population of New York State" – a follow-up of just "How about the State" / "I meant the State" is transformed on-screen into "What is the population of New York State" (despite "New York" and "population" not being mentioned the second time). Similarly "where's the nearest Chili's" followed by "phone them", for example.
