An approach is provided in which a knowledge manager creates a pattern set that includes paraphrases and corresponding paraphrase scores. The paraphrase scores are based on a set of first candidate answers obtained from querying a first set of resource data. The knowledge manager performs a search, which is based on the paraphrases and a user question, on a second set of resource data and identifies a set of second candidate answers. In turn, the knowledge manager scores the set of second candidate answers based on the paraphrase scores corresponding to the paraphrases utilized to identify the set of second candidate answers.