Question about ね particle


I've been doing some JLPT5 grammar practice , and I came across the following
dialogue fragment:

> A:『勉強はどうですか』  
> B:『そうですね。』.

The reason I'm confused is I thought 『ね』 was employed as a way to seek
confirmation/agreement but I can't see that at play here. I'm translating 'A's
question as 'how is your study?', but even translating it as 'how about
study?'(i.e. 'how about we study?'), it still doesn't entirely make sense to
me. こんらんしています :/ I am simply a ばか外人 and would be grateful if someone could
help me :)




Given the limited context, there's only so much room for interpretation, but
assuming that this is only a _fragment_ of the conversation, this can be an
acceptable answer.

[そうですね](https://jisho.org/word/%E3%81%9D%E3%81%86%E3%81%A7%E3%81%99%E3%81%AD)
is a way to say, `that is so` or `right`, but there are also cases where it is
used as the speaker is gathering their thoughts about the matter. While not
expressly stated in most translation dictionaries, the latter usage can be
loosely translated to something like `well` or even `let me see....` Here's a
[website](https://www.nihongomaster.com/dictionary/entry/95024/soudesune) that
indicates both usages.

[Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%9D%E3%81%86%E3%81%A7%E3%81%99%E3%81%AD)
also includes a translation of:

> hmm (used to indicate that the listener has heard and understood)

So if there is not much more context to be had in this particular question,
what you are probably seeing is that person B is prefacing their answer with a
'let me gather my thoughts for a second,' or they have no intention to answer
the question, just that they want to look like they are thinking about it.

