Can somebody please explain to me what's going on here?

I can load an external .xml sheet no problem. I can trace the entire content of that .xml sheet no problem. I CAN'T seem to directly access the tags. When I try to trace them, I get nothing.

Here's the code (called from another script. I pass the URL location of the .xml file)
Code:
public function init(target:String)
		{
			myLoader.load(new URLRequest(target));
			myLoader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.TEXT;
			myLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, processXML);
		}
		public function processXML(e:Event):void 
		{
			
			var xml:XMLList = XML(myLoader.data);
			
			trace(xml.responseDeclaration); //traces nothing
                        trace(xml) //traces all xml code
			
			
			
		}
Here is the xml file

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> 
<assessmentItem xmlns="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsqti_v2p1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsqti_v2p1 http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsqti_v2p1.xsd" identifier="PDC_PM101_C1_FE1_Q1" title="Question" timeDependent="false" adaptive="false">
    <responseDeclaration identifier="Q1" cardinality="single">
        <correctResponse>
            <value>A</value> 
			</correctResponse>
        <mapping defaultValue="0">
            <mapEntry mapKey="A" mappedValue="10" /> 
            <mapEntry mapKey="B" mappedValue="0" />
            <mapEntry mapKey="C" mappedValue="0" />	
            <mapEntry mapKey="D" mappedValue="0" />	
        </mapping>
    </responseDeclaration>
    <itemBody>
        <p>Which statement is TRUE about the Statement of Work (SOW)?</p>
        <choiceInteraction responseIdentifier="Q1" maxChoices="1" shuffle="true">
            <simpleChoice identifier="A">When the customer and the project team belong to the same business, the SOW is the only project agreement required.</simpleChoice> 
            <simpleChoice identifier="B">When the customer and the project team belong to the same business, no SOW is required.</simpleChoice>
            <simpleChoice identifier="C">The SOW is a legal contract.</simpleChoice> 
            <simpleChoice identifier="D">A SOW is sufficient when the project team and the customer are different legal entities.</simpleChoice> 
        </choiceInteraction>
    </itemBody>
    <!--<responseProcessing template="explanationTemplate.xml" />--> 
    <!--<modalFeedback outcomeIdentifier="EXPLANATION" identifier="completed" showHide="show">
        <p>The project charter authorizes a project and includes the initial project requirements.</p>
        <p>Reference: <i>A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)</i> Chapter 4, Section 4.1.</p>
    </modalFeedback> -->
</assessmentItem>
The only thing I can get to work at this point is to access the tags via:

trace(xml.children()[0].localName()) //traces responseDeclaration
trace(xml.children().length() //traces 2

I do NOT want to have to resort to recursive functions as a "work around".