5. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said retrieving said plurality of supporting passages and generating a confidence score for each candidate answer based on said supporting passages occurs in parallel operations.
5. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said retrieving said plurality of supporting passages and generating a confidence score for each candidate answer based on said supporting passages occurs in parallel operations. 6. The method as claimed in claim 5 , wherein said confidence score comprises a term match score, said method further comprising: counting a number of query terms in a passage; and determining if said number matches a number of terms in a candidate answer.