The Synchronization between Linguistic and Cognitive faculties

Consider these questions - 

Which year was world war 2 fought in?

Where is the Eiffel tower?

What is Trump's brother's name?

Now, in trying to come up with the answers to these questions, one has to tap ones mind with pointers like - 'year...year....year.....whats the year?', 'place....place place....whats the place?' and 'name...name.... name...whats the name?' respectively. One tap's ones mind's memory with these objective, definitive, "tangible" items/pointers (year, place, name) - and these questions listed above are indeed KNOWLEDGE-based questions.

Now consider this question - 

Why is the COVID situation so bad in the US?

Here, one has to tap one's mind with 'why ....why....why?' Now 'why' is not an objective, definitive, tangible "item". (That is, 'reason'). It doesn't have the same "item"ish flavour as that of year, place or name. You cannot "statically itemize" a 'why' or reason or thinking. And indeed, these are THINKING-based questions.

(Loosely speaking, one can "see" knowledge, but not thought)