We describe a problem solver built to answer questions like those on Advanced Placement exams using knowledge bases authored by domain experts. The problem solver is designed to work independently of any particular knowledge base or domain. Given a question, the problem solver identifies those portions of the knowledge base that are relevant to the question. We found that simple heuristics for judging relevance significantly improved performance, with no drop in coverage.

@inproceedings{chaw-ictai09,
  author    = {Shaw Yi Chaw and
               Ken Barker and
               Bruce W. Porter and
               Dan Tecuci and
               Peter Z. Yeh},
  title     = {A Scalable Problem-Solver for Large Knowledge-Bases},
  booktitle = {Proceedings to The 21st IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI)},
  year      = {2009},
  pages     = {461-468},
}